Brussels police detain three after raids linked to airport, metro blasts
Top suspect in Paris attacks, caught last week, has stopped co-operating with police
BRUSSELS— Heavily armed police swept into Brussels neighbourhoods Friday in operations linked to this week’s bombings, detaining three people and shooting two. One man was carrying a suspicious bag while accompanied by a girl.
As Easter weekend began, jittery Europeans faced uncertainly about how many violent extremists remain at large, and where and when they might strike again.
On Friday afternoon, two blasts and gunfire rang out in the Schaerbeek district of Belgium’s capital, where police earlier found explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the suicide attackers who killed 31 people and wounded 270 in assaults on the Brussels airport and subway.
On the last day of national mourning, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry laid a wreath at the airport for the victims of Tuesday’s bombings, a ceremony that was skipped by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel because of the police operations.
Kerry, in a hastily arranged visit, defended Belgium’s counterterrorism efforts despite a series of security and intelligence failures before the bombings that have brought sharp criticism of top members of Belgium’s embattled government. Authorities believe both the Brussels attacks and the Nov. 13 bombings in Paris that killed 130 people were plotted from Belgium.
Confirming that several FBI agents are involved in the investigation, Kerry said the “carping” about Belgium’s shortcomings “is a little bit frantic and inappropriate.”
He also lashed out at Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “We will not be deterred,” he said. “We will come back with greater resolve, with greater strength, and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth.”
As the identities of the victims began to be made public, officials announced that U.S., British, German, Chinese, Italian, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead.
A manhunt has been underway for one of the airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.
On Friday, dozens of heavily armed officers swept into Schaerbeek neighbourhood, as well as the Forest and St-Gilles districts, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said. It was the second such raid in Schaerbeek in two days.
Officers began the two-hour operation at about1:30 p.m., when “two big explosions” echoed through Schaerbeek, resident Marie-Pierre Bouvez said. It was not immediately clear if the blasts were controlled explosions.
At a tram stop, a man sitting with a young girl and holding a bag was ordered by police “to put the bag far from him,” and after he did so, police shot him twice, hitting him in the leg, said Norman Kabir, a local electri- cian. The girl was taken into safe custody, and a bomb-squad robot searched the bag, he added.
State broadcaster RTBF said police apparently feared the bag held explosives.
The top suspect in the Paris bombings, Salah Abdeslam, who was captured in Brussels one week ago, has stopped co-operating with police and “no longer wants to talk,” said Justice Minister Koen Geens. France is seeking his extradition, and his lawyer said he is prepared to go.
Elsewhere, Belgium’s nuclear agency said it had withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and denied access to other people recently amid concern the nuclear plants could be a target.
Immediately after Tuesday’s attacks, security was boosted around Belgium’s nuclear sites, and hundreds of workers were sent home.
Last month, authorities said searches after the Paris attacks uncovered video linked to a person working in Belgium’s nuclear industry.
Belgian media reported this week that two of the suicide bombers in the Brussels attacks, brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, had video of the home of a senior official at the Mol nuclear waste facility in the Flanders region.
In the neighbourhood of Molenbeek, home to some who took part in the Paris attacks, Sheik Mohamed Tojgani denounced the Brussels bombers during a sermon before Friday prayers.
“Terrorism is terrorism,” said Tojgani, the imam of Molenbeek’s main mosque. “It has no state, no nationality, no religion, no country.”