‘Belgium avoided a serious attack’
BRUSSELS: A suitcase bomb packed with nails and gas bottles could have caused heavy casualties, Belgium’s prime minister said yesterday, a day after a soldier shot dead a Moroccan national attempting an attack on Brussels’ central station.
“We have avoided an attack that could have been a great deal worse,” Charles Michel said after a national security council meeting following Tuesday evening’s incident, in which no one else was hurt.
However, no further threat was seen as imminent and the public alert level was left unchanged.
A counter-terrorism prosecutor named the dead man only by his initials, O.Z. He was a 36-yearold Moroccan citizen who lived in Molenbeek and had not been suspected of militant links. He set off his bomb on a crowded station concourse below ground.
Walking up to a group of passengers, prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said, “he grabbed his suitcase, while shouting and causing a partial explosion. Fortunately, nobody was hurt.”
The suitcase, later found to contain nails and gas bottles, caught fire and then exploded a second time as the man ran downstairs to the platforms.
He then ran back up to the concourse where commuters had been milling around and rushed toward a soldier shouting “Allahu akbar”. The soldier, part of a routine patrol, shot him several times. Bomb disposal experts checked the body and found he was not carrying more explosives.
Police raided the man’s home overnight, Van Der Sypt said.
Molenbeek, an impoverished borough with a big Moroccan Muslim population, gained notoriety after an Islamic State cell based there mounted suicide attacks on Paris in November 2015 that killed 130 people. Associates of that group attacked here four months later, killing 32 people.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility and no word on how investigations are progressing into whether the man had acted alone or had help, and into any links to radical groups.
“Such isolated acts will continue in Brussels, Paris and elsewhere. It’s inevitable,” Brussels security consultant Claude Moniquet, a former French agent, told broadcaster RTL.
He said attacks in Europe may increase, though many would be by “amateurs”.
Remy Bonnaffe, a 23-year-old lawyer who was waiting for a train home, photographed the flaming suitcase before the second blast, followed by gunfire, prompted him to run.
“I think we had some luck tonight.” Reuters