A machete-wielding man shouting “Allahu akbar” (God is the greatest) wounded two policewomen in southern Belgium on Saturday before being shot dead by police, with Europe on edge after a wave of militant attacks.
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Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel says the identity of the assailant who attacked two female officers in the city Charleroi wasn’t immediately known. Members of the Islamic State with links to the November attacks in Paris had stayed in a home in Charleroi, Belgium, a city about 30 miles from Brussels. “My thoughts are with the victims, their relatives and police officers”. According to Charleroi’s mayor, Paul Magnette, the attacker had apparently meant to enter the police station but was stopped at the checkpoint where he carried out the attack.
They also said the officers were “out of danger”.
The attacker was shot by a third police officer and was dead in a hospital.
The other officer is reported to have only be lightly injured.
But he told the broadcaster the attack appeared to be a terrorist incident. The man was shot and killed by police.
Belgium has been on edge since suicide bombers attacked an airport terminal and a metro station in the Belgian capital on 22 March, killing 32 people and injuring many more. “We are monitoring the situation closely”, he wrote.
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Belgium and its capital Brussels, home to European Union institutions and the headquarters of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, are on a security alert level of three out of a maximum four, denoting a “possible and probable” threat. ISIS-linked terrorists killed a French priest in late July at Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy, the Guardian reported.
