Belgium tightens security after failed Brussels bombing
Belgium tightened security even more on Wednesday to counter fears that lone attackers could strike anywhere and at any time, a day after a failed bombing by a man shouting “Allahu akbar” at a Brussels train station put the nation on edge.
A soldier killed the attacker, who had tried to set off a powerful nail bomb that could have led to fatalities among the two dozen or so travellers checking train times on a public display board at Brussels Central Station on Tuesday, officials said.
Similar attacks by lone assailants causing maximum mayhem but few victims have also happened in London and Paris in the past couple of days, putting European capitals on alert on the eve of the busy summer tourist season.
The Brussels attacker was a 36-year-old Moroccan national not known to authorities for being involved in terror activities, federal magistrate Eric Van der Sypt told reporters.
His office said that the attacker sympathized with the Islamic State group and added that police who raided his home found “chemicals and material that can be used to make explosives.”
The statement from the federal prosecutor’s office also said that the 36-year-old “likely made the bomb” at his home in the Molenbeek neighbourhood.
Molenbeek was the home and transit point for many of the suspects linked to attacks in Brussels and in Paris in November 2015.
The man in Tuesday’s attack charged at soldiers at Brussels Central Station after his suitcase, containing nails and gas canisters, failed to fully explode, Van der Sypt said. The man then shouted “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” before a soldier shot him dead, the magistrate said.