Islamic State claims Belgian terror attack
LIEGE: Islamic State claimed responsibility on Wednesday for an attack the previous day in the Belgian city of Liege in which two policewomen and a bystander were killed, but provided no proof.
The group said in a statement a ‘‘soldier of the caliphate’’ had carried out what Belgian police called a terrorist attack.
Belgian authorities faced questions over why the attacker, a prison inmate who was suspected of links to radical Islamists in jail, was let out for a day. He was shot dead by police at a school near the scene.
Interior Minister Jan Jambon said authorities were still examining the motives of Benjamin Herman (31), a Belgian drug dealer who had been in jail for years but was let out this week to prepare for an eventual release in 2020.
Herman had shouted ‘‘Allahu akbar’’ during his attack and he had had contact with Islamist radicals in jail in 2016 and 2017.
He also appeared to have followed online exhortations from Islamic State to stab police officers and use their service weapons to shoot others, prosecutors said.
A Dutch police have shot and wounded a Syrian man who attacked officers after alarmed neighbours reported he was on an apartment balcony waving an axe and shouting ‘‘Allahu akbar’’.
Police say the shooting happened in Schiedam near the port city of Rotterdam yesterday when police tried unsuccessfully to calm the 26yearold man.
When an arrest team entered the apartment, the man attacked them and stabbed a police dog, which later died of its injuries. — Reuters/AP