Prosecutors said at least 31 people were killed and 270 injured in the three suicide bomb attacks in Brussels on Tuesday morning, and the death toll could rise.
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Islamic extremists struck Tuesday in the heart of Europe, killing at least 34 people and wounding scores of others in back-to-back bombings of the Brussels airport and subway that again laid bare the continent’s vulnerability to suicide squads. The second bomber was not identified while the third man in the picture, wearing a light overcoat and hat, had fled from the scene and was the focus of an intense manhunt. It also makes him very valuable to the terror group, and as such it makes sense why he himself did not execute suicide attacks in Paris and now in Brussels. The official said one of the two brothers in the Brussels strikes, Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, rented the Forest safe house that Abdeslam used in the wake of November’s Paris attacks – definitively connecting the Paris and Brussels attack cells, the official said.
Belgian newspaper DH reported that the man said to be at large might be Najim Laachraoui, whom Belgian authorities have been searching for since last week as a suspected accomplice of key Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam.
Abdeslam, who was captured in the Brussels district of Molenbeek on Friday after five months on the run, allegedly told investigators that he originally planned to commit a suicide bombing at France’s main stadium in the Paris attacks, but then “backtracked” and abandoned his explosive belt, Paris prosecutor Francois Mollins said Saturday. It was not immediately clear whether Khalid el-Bakraoui had also participated in the airport attacks.
People all over Brussels gathered in squares this evening to pay homage to the victims of yesterday’s attacks.
Defiant applause broke out after the symbolic display of solidarity from a large crowd at the central Place de la Bourse, while there was also a large crowd at the headquarters of the European Union.
Glass is seen near the entrance of Maalbeek metro station in Brussels, Belgium, on March 22, 2016.
Evidence is mounting that the extremists may have launched this week’s attacks in Brussels in haste because they feared authorities were closing in on them after Abdeslam’s arrest.
Ibrahim El-Bakraoui was one of them, confirmed Van Leeuw.
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Daesh has a network of semiautonomous interlocking cells comprised of more than 400 militants trained and prepared to target European cities in waves of attacks, a number of intelligence officials say. And on Thursday, a senior Belgian security source told CNN that authorities now believe a second person was involved in that blast.
