Machete attack on cops

Belgian fiend slain

A machete-wielding man yelling, “Allahu akbar,” wounded two female police officers before being fatally shot in the Belgian city of Charleroi Saturday, in what the prime minister said appeared to be a terrorist act.

The attacker was shot by a third officer and later died of his wounds, but the police officers were out of danger, police said.

“Initial indications clearly point towards terrorism,” Prime Minister Charles Michel told the television channel RTL.

Public broadcaster VRT said the attacker had taken out a machete when two officers asked to search him at a checkpoint set up outside the city’s police headquarters as part of security measures imposed after major Islamist attacks in the last nine months in Belgium and neighboring France.

One man told the VTM television station that he heard five to six shots fired in rapid succession, then three more 30 seconds later.

There was no immediate indication of the attacker’s identity. Belgian media reported that he had no papers with him.

A spokesman for the federal prosecutor said the authorities expected to be able to issue more information on Sunday morning.

Belgium and its capital, Brussels, home to European Union institutions and the headquarters of NATO, are currently on a security alert level of three out of a maximum four, denoting a “possible and probable” threat.

Last March, Islamist bombers killed 32 people in suicide attacks at Brussels’ airport and a train station. In addition, many of those who carried out the attacks on Paris last November, in which 130 people died, were based in Belgium.

Saturday’s incident also follows a series of attacks in the last month, mostly in France and Germany, many claimed by ISIS.