Authorities suspect that at least five people took part in the attacks in Brussels on Tuesday, three at the airport and two at the metro station in the city’s center.
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“I can confirm a police operation targeting a person who was intercepted by police and suffered a slight leg injury”, Schaerbeek mayor Bernard Clerfayt said, according to ABC. It says one explosion was heard at the start of the operation and cited witnesses describing gunfire. Investigators said they found “an arsenal” of weapons in Kriket’s home, including triacetone triperoxide explosives, which officials believe was used in the Brussels attacks.
Abdeslam was arrested and wounded in a police raid on a flat in the Forest area of Brussels last Friday – four days before the attacks in the Belgian capital.
European Union justice and interior ministers were holding an emergency Thursday afternoon to discuss the attacks, and French President Francois Hollande said France would “speak loud and clear” for better intelligence sharing and tougher measures against weapons trafficking.
PARIS- Salah Abdeslam, one of Paris attacks’s ringleaders who was captured on March 18 and belongs to the same terror cell as the perpetrators of the Brussels attacks, has spoken out to Belgian authorities.
It is still unclear whether the arrested people are connected to the attacks and their identities have not been revealed yet.
The younger brother of suspected Brussels suicide bomber Najim Laachraoui said overnight he is sad and overwhelmed over what his sibling had done.
Belgian prosecutors have charged three men with terrorist offences, including a suspect who local media said appeared on security footage with two suicide bombers at Brussels airport shortly before they detonated their bombs. He was killed during a French police raid near France’s national stadium outside Paris where three suicide bombers had blown themselves up during the November 13 attacks.
Six people were arrested in a series of police raids carried out around Brussels late on Thursday, the Guardian reports, in connection with Tuesday’s bombings.
The brothers Khalid and Ibrahim el- Bakraoui were identified through DNA fingerprints on explosives and later tied to Paris attacks.
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Prosecutors would not comment on reports that a fifth attacker may also be at large – a man seen on surveillance cameras in the Brussels Metro carrying a large bag alongside one of the suicide bombers. His lawyer, Sven Mary, said earlier this week Abdeslam “didn’t know” about this week’s terror attacks ahead of time. However, they said the situation remained grave and another attack is “likely and possible”.
