Attacks hastened by fear of capture?
BRUSSELS — The men who brought chaos and carnage to the Brussels may have been spurred to act by fears counterterrorism agents were closing in, according to a message linked to one of the suspected suicide bombers.
The missive, contained in a discarded computer, does not specifically cite recent raids across Belgium, including one that netted a key suspect in last year’s Paris attacks.
But its tone suggests a sense the noose was tightening, Belgium’s federal prosecutor, Frederic Van Leeuw, said Wednesday. This follows the capture Friday of Salah Abdeslam, thought to be the sole surviving participant of the massacre in Paris.
The message also gives apparent insight into the tactics, organization and motivation of the militants who perpetrated the worst attack on Belgian soil since the Second World War, and possibly a deeper look into the wider network linked to last year’s Paris massacres.
At least one of the men believed to have been a suicide attacker was deported to Europe from Turkey in July 2015 after Turkey determined he was a militant, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, adding he believed counterterrorism officials had the man on their radar.
In the note, discovered on a computer dumped near an apartment containing bomb-making material, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui apparently described feeling pressure.
He wrote he was “in a hurry, no longer know what to do, being searched for everywhere, no longer secure,” Van Leeuw said.
El-Bakraoui, 29, was identified by authorities as among three suicide bombers — including his brother Khalid, 27 — involved in Tuesday’s attacks. A fourth suspect — whose bomb failed to detonate — remains at large. ISIL has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Authorities believe the bombers had close connections to the Paris attackers.
The same bomb maker may have been involved in both attacks. Khalid el-Bakraoui is believed to have used an assumed name to rent a Brusselsarea apartment where Abdeslam’s fingerprints were found last week.
The computer file does not name Abdeslam, but says the attackers feared if they did not strike quickly, they risked winding up in prison alongside “him,” Van Leeuw said.
Authorities also found large stockpiles of bomb-building materials at his apartment in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels, the prosecutor said: 15 kilos of TATP explosives, 150 litres of acetone, 30 litres of hydrogen peroxide, detonators and a suitcase full of nails and screws.