- Belgian police released new images of suspected airport bomber.
- The multiple blasts at the airport and the city’s metro killed at least 30 and wounded over 200.
- Security experts believed the blasts were probably in preparation before Friday’s arrest Salah Abdeslam.
- Local media said authorities had followed a tip from a taxi driver who believed he may have driven the bombers to the airport.
Belgian police are hunting an Islamic State suspect seen with two supposed suicide bombers shortly before they struck Zaventem Airport in Brussels in the first of two attacks that also hit the city’s metro, killing at least 30 and wounding over 200.
The blasts that occurred on Tuesday, four days after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam in Brussels sent shockwaves across Europe and around the world. Abdeslam is the prime suspect and mastermind of the Paris attacks that took place in 2015.
We can and we will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all around the world.Barack Obama, US President
Brussels police mounted an operation in the north of the city, turning up another bomb, an Islamic State flag and bomb-making chemicals in an apartment in the borough of Schaerbeek.
Local media said authorities had followed a tip from a taxi driver who believed he may have driven the bombers to the airport.
Investigators said they were focusing on a man in a hat who was caught on CCTV pushing a laden baggage trolley at the airport with two others they believed were the bombers.
An unused explosive device was later found at the airport and a man was seen running away from the terminal after the explosions.
Security experts believed the blasts, which killed about 20 people on a metro train running through the area that houses European Union institutions, were probably in preparation before Friday’s arrest Salah Abdeslam.
It was unclear whether he had knowledge of the new attack or whether accomplices may have feared police were closing in.
Abdeslam’s prosecutors said that he confessed to being the tenth Paris attacker but failed to emulate his suicide bomber brother. He appears to have spent four months in Brussels undetected, aided by a network of friends and petty criminal contacts.
After questioning him, police issued a wanted notice for 25-year-old Najim Laachraoui, a former fighter in Syria whom local media say, they suspect of helping arm the Paris attacks. The poor quality of Tuesday’s CCTV images left open the possibility that Laachraoui might be the third man caught on the airport cameras.
A witness said he heard shouts in Arabic and shots shortly before two blasts struck in a crowded airport departure lounge at the airport. Belgian media said police found a Kalashnikov assault rifle next to the body of an attacker.
A lockdown imposed after the attacks was eased and public transport was due to reopen, at least in part, on Wednesday, although the airport will be closed at least another day.
Islamic State warned of “black days” for those fighting it in Syria and Iraq. Belgian warplanes have joined the coalition in the Middle East, but Brussels, home to the European Union and NATO headquarters, has long been a centre of Islamist militancy.
In a statement, ISIS said that caliphate soldiers, strapped with suicide vests and carrying explosive devices and machine guns struck Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station.
It was not clear, however, whether the attackers used vests. The suspects were photographed pushing bags on trolleys, and witnesses said many of the airport dead and wounded were hit mostly in the legs, possibly indicating blasts at floor level.
The two men in dark clothes wore gloves on their left hands only. One security expert speculated they might have concealed detonators. The man in the hat was not wearing any gloves.
A photograph of three male suspects was taken at Zaventem. Two of them seem to have committed suicide attacks. The third, wearing a light-coloured jacket and a hat, is actively being sought.Frederic Van Leeuw, Prosecutor
If you recognise this individual or if you have information on this attack, please contact the investigators. Discretion assured.Police Notice
Some 300 Belgians are estimated to have fought with Islamists in Syria, making the country of 11 million the leading European exporter of foreign fighters and a focus of concern in France and other neighbours over its security capabilities.
What we had feared has come to pass. We are at war.Charles Michel, Belgian Prime Minister
Michel, who locked down the Belgian capital for days in fear of a follow-up attack after the November bloodshed in Paris, has dramatically increased the budget of security forces.
But experts say tracking militants among the country’s half-million Muslims, 5 percent of the population, has been hampered by political divisions and a lack of resources.
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