Face of bomber ‘neutralised’ in station attack
THIS is the face of the man who attempted to unleash a major terror attack on a busy Brussels train station.
Oussama Zariouh, a 36-year-old Moroccan, hoped to cause carnage with a bomb loaded with nails and gas canisters – in an apparent copy of last year’s atrocities in the city.
A catastrophic incident was only narrowly avoided as the device failed to detonate properly.
In the third attack on a European capital in a week, the terrorist was gunned down as he rampaged through Brussels Central Station screaming ‘allahu akbar’.
Yesterday it emerged Zariouh was from Molenbeek, the notorious district where the previous atrocities in Brussels and Paris were plotted.
Belgian officials said he planned ‘much more damage’ – halted only by the botched device. Prime minister Charles Michel said: ‘We have avoided an attack that could have been a great deal worse.’
Zariouh entered the station in the old town district on Tuesday night with the bomb in a suitcase. After approaching passengers on the lower floor he tried to detonate it but there was only a ‘partial explosion’. The attacker, who was not wearing a suicide belt as initially suspected, chased a station master, as the bomb exploded again.
In the upper entrance hall, he charged at a soldier, who ‘neutralised’ him by shooting him several times. Zariouh later died from his injuries. No one else was hurt.
Remy Bonnaffe, 23, captured a photo of the device exploding. He said: ‘It was only when I heard the second blast and shots being fired that I thought I’d better run … we had some luck.’
Prosecutors said searches of Zariouh’s home, where the divorcee is understood to have lived since 2013, revealed he was an IS sympathiser. Possible chemical bomb materials were also found.
Authorities said he was not a known terrorist sympathiser but had committed a drug offence.