SOLDIER FOILS BOMB ATTACK IN BRUSSELS

Attacker shot dead after suitcase bomb fails to properly explode in busy Belgian station,

BRUSSELS // A Moroccan man was foiled as he tried to carry out a terrorist attack with a nail bomb at a busy Brussels train station, Belgium said yesterday.

The man, 36, identified only as O Z, shouted “Allahu Akbar” and tried to detonate a suitcase in a group of passengers at Brussels central station before a soldier shot and killed him on Tuesday.

O Z came from the largely immigrant Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek, which has been linked to several earlier attacks. He was not known to police for terrorism offences. “It could have been much worse,” said a spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor. “It is clear that he wanted to cause more damage than he did.” Belgian prime minister Charles Michel said a “terrorist attack has been prevented” in the city that hosts the headquarters of the European Union and Nato.

But he said that although security would be stepped up, the country’s terror alert level would be kept stable. “We are not allowing ourselves to be intimidated by terrorists,” said Mr Michel. On Monday, a white Briton mowed down Muslims near a mosque in London, and an extremist on a terror watchlist rammed a car laden with weapons into a police vehicle in Paris. Brussels has been on high alert since suicide bombers struck Zavantem Airport and the Maalbeek metro station near the EU quarter in March last year, killing 32 people and injuring hundreds.

ISIL has claimed the attacks, which were carried out by the same cell in Brussels that was behind the November 2015 suicide bombings and shootings in Paris, which killed 130 people.

In Tuesday’s incident, O Z failed to cause any casualties. He entered the metro station and twice approached a group of about 10 passengers, the second time standing in the middle of them, prosecutors said. “He grabbed his suitcase while shouting and causing a partial explosion. Fortunately nobody was hurt,” said the prosecutor’s spokesman.

“The suitcase immediately caught fire. The man then left his luggage burning and went down to the platform in pursuit of a station master.

“Meanwhile, the bag exploded a second time more violently. This bag contained nails and gas bottles. “The man then returned to the hall where he rushed to a soldier shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. The soldier immediately opened fire and hit the individual several times.”

O Z, who died instantly, was not wearing a suicide belt, contrary to some Belgian media reports.

“He was not known to the authorities for any terrorism connection,” said the prosecutor’s spokesman, who declined to give the man’s full name while the investigation continued.

Belgian interior minister Jan Jambon underlined the passengers’ close call, saying that the “big explosion did not happen”.

Police later raided O Z’s home in Molenbeek, home to some of the extremists involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks.

Belgium would keep its terror alert level at three on a scale of four, Mr Michel said after chairing a meeting of his national security council.

Events in Brussels, including a concert by rock band Coldplay, were set to continue, although authorities said there would be extra security and warned people not to bring backpacks.

The busy central station in the heart of Brussels, which sits just beside the Grand Place central square, reopened at 8am yesterday.

“There were people crying, there were people shouting after the explosion,” said a spokeswoman for the rail company.

A witness, Nicolas Van Herrewegen, said he had gone down to the station’s mezzanine level on Tuesday night after hearing somebody shouting. “Then he yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’, and he blew up a wheeled suitcase,” said the railway employee.

“It wasn’t exactly a big explosion but the impact was pretty big. People were running away.”

Mr Van Herrewegen described O Z as well- built and tanned with short hair, and wearing a white shirt and jeans.

Soldiers have been deployed at railway stations and landmark buildings in Belgium since the terror attacks in Paris, when a link to Brussels was first established.