The attacker was shot by a third officer and subsequently died of his wounds, but the police officers were out of danger, police said.
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Police also said in January that some of the men involved in the November 13 Paris attacks used an apartment in Charleroi to plot their assaults.
Public broadcaster VRT said the attacker had taken out a machete when two officers asked to search him at a checkpoint set up outside the city’s police headquarters as part of security measures imposed after major Islamist attacks in the last nine months in Belgium and neighboring France.
A machete-wielding man shouting “Allahu Akbar” was shot and killed after wounding two police officers Saturday in the Belgian city of Charleroi, police said via Twitter. “Thoughts go to the victims, their relatives, and police”. 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. One officer was transported to a hospital, the other was less seriously wounded.
“But that at this stage hasn’t been confirmed by police, but it is being widely reported by media sources in and around the city of Charleroi”. “We are closely monitoring the situation”.
A Charleroi police tweet confirmed the death of the attacker.
Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the assault, which he denounced as an “act of barbarism” was the deed of a single person or something more elaborate. The attack occurred in front of Charleroi police station.
A police officer reached by telephone declined to make further comments.
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The attack happened as police in Belgium remain on high alert in the wake of attacks which killed 32 people in March this year.
