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EU Commission locks down after Brussels blasts - Reuters

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EU Commission locks down after Brussels blasts - Reuters

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The European Commission locked down its staff on Tuesday after explosions at Brussels airport and at one and possibly two metro stations close to the EU institutions, the vice president in charge of personnel tweeted.

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"Reported" 4 explosies bij de metro en 2 bij de luchthaven in totaal

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Explosions tore through the departure hall of Brussels airport on Tuesday morning killing at least 14 people and injuring another 81. Shortly afterwards, a second blast struck a metro station in the Belgian capital, close to European Union (EU) institutions, which left an estimated 20 dead and more than 100 people wounded. Both attacks have since been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

The latest rise in death toll in the subway attack was reported by the Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur at a news conference, with the official saying "around 20 people" died. The mayor's updated figures bring the total death count for both the metro and airport explosions at 34, an increase from numbers provided earlier in the day by Belgian health minister Maggie de Block.

IS, currently entrenched in Iraq and Syria, later claimed responsibility for the bombings. It issued a statement through the Amaq Agency, which is linked to the group, saying its fighters had waged both the attacks. The group identified Belgium as "a country participating in the international coalition against the Islamic State." According to the statement "several" fighters were involved in the airport attack, while it said the metro station bombing was carried out by one suicide bomber.

Belgian police have now issued a wanted notice for a man suspected of involvement in the airport attacks at Brussels airport. Calling for information they issued a photograph of a man, dressed in white and wearing a hat, as he pushed a luggage trolley.

The first attack took place at Brussels airport in Zaventem, 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) northeast of the city center. Two explosions rocked the departure hall of the airport at Tuesday morning at 8 am local time and the other just outside the airport's Starbucks. A third bomb was later found on the airport premises. Security services destroyed the undetonated device, according to the provincial governor of the Brabant Flanders region.

The Belga news agency said shots were fired at the airport and there were shouts in Arabic shortly before the explosions, one of which Belgium's federal prosecutor said was likely a suicide attack.

The front façade of the Zaventem airport, which hosted over 23 million passengers in 2015, has been completely destroyed. Passengers already inside airplanes were evacuated via bus towards the northern edge of the airport.

Video showed devastation inside the departure hall with ceiling tiles and glass scattered across the floor. Some passengers emerged from the terminal with blood spattered over their clothes.

Joke Massa, a 26-year-old Brussels resident, had just walked through the departure hall to check in for a flight when the first explosion hit, forcing people to the ground amid the confusion. She told VICE News that people began to run as the second explosion went off and the "ceiling was coming down."

Massa said that outside the airport people were calling family members for help. "People were screaming... just horrible, it was a nightmare," she added.

Shortly after the first attack, another explosion was heard at Maelbeek metro station in southeastern Brussels as a train was leaving the station traveling towards the center of the European Quarter. Victims reportedly attempted to climb out of the train windows.

The European Commission has locked down its staff and all public transport across the city has been closed.

STIB, Brussels' transportation authority, worked to immediately evacuate the injured from the Maelbeek station and announced that all transportation networks have been indefinitely closed. Buses that usually carry everyday citizens of Belgium's capital have been redirected to hold the injured and to transport them to hospitals around the city.

Smoke billowed out of the Maelbeek station on the Rue de la Loi, a major artery of traffic inside Brussels. The street was closed and cars stretched as far as the eye could see across the highways of the city.

Dozens of ambulances poured into the European Quarter, and volunteer forces poured into Brussels from cities across the country to care for the wounded and to console friends and families.

Authorities have uncovered suspicious objects left behind at both scenes. In the Brussels airport, police reportedly uncovered a suicide vest that had not been detonated, national broadcaster VTM said. The army was said to have defused the device with a controlled explosion operation on a suspicious package on the premises. A similar exercise took place earlier in the day at the metro station following the attacks there.

Cellular networks were saturated across the city and people were urged to use Facebook, Twitter, or Whatsapp to communicate to friends and family that they are safe. The indefinite closure of the train system and major roads in the city posed a particular problem for many Belgians who commute to the city for work everyday. The entire Thalys train network, which links thousands of passengers across France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and western Germany, was also closed.

The Belgian Crisis Centre, clearly wary of a further incident, appealed to the population: "Stay where you are."

Brussels airport said it had cancelled all flights, the complex had been evacuated, and it will remain closed until 6am on Wednesday. All three main long-distance rail stations in Brussels were closed and train services on the cross-channel tunnel from London to Brussels were suspended.

Passengers are evacuated from the terminal building. (Photo by Jonas Roosens/EPA)

Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel addressed the attacks this morning, calling them "blind, violently, and cowardly."

"We were fearing terrorist attacks, and that has now happened," he said. "We must face this challenge in solidarity, united, together."

Federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said it was too early to provide more details about the attackers. Van Leeuw discussed the initial explosion at the airport, saying it was "probably a suicide bomber." He did not provide details on subsequent explosions.

Social media showed pictures of smoke rising from the airport departure hall where windows had been shattered by the blasts. Passengers were seen running away down a slipway.

Alphonse Youla, 40, who works at the airport, said he heard a man shouting out in Arabic before the first explosion. "Then the glass ceiling of the airport collapsed."

"I helped carry out five people dead, their legs mangled," he said, his hands covered in blood.

Sky News television's Alex Rossi, at the scene, said he heard two "very, very loud explosions."

"I could feel the building move. There was also dust and smoke as well... I went towards where the explosion came from and there were people coming out looking very dazed and shocked."

As Belgium elevated its terror threat level to four, the highest rating, non-essential staff were evacuated from Belgium's Tihange nuclear plant at the request of the country's authorities, its French operator Engie said. A spokesman told Reuters that key staff remained on the site to continue operating the facility.

Elsewhere in Europe, other countries began to take action in the wake of the attacks. The UK Prime Minister David Cameron will hold an emergency meeting with government ministers. The Dutch military strengthened security at airports and borders and police in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland have also stepped up security at airports and other public places.

Speaking from the Élysée presidential palace, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced that an extra 400 police officers and gendarmes had been deployed at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly airports, as well as in subway and train stations, and other sensitive sites in and around the French capital.

"France and Belgium are linked in horror," said French president François Hollande, adding that, "The war against terrorism must be fought across the whole of Europe."

"We must make sure we are united, on a European level, on the global level, and the most vital unity, on a national level," said Hollande. "We are all affected."

The blasts occurred four days after the arrest in Brussels of a suspected participant in November militant attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

Belgian and French had already been on alert for any reprisal actionafter the Friday arrest of Salah Abdeslam, the prime surviving suspect for November's Paris attacks on a stadium, cafes, and a concert hall. Abdeslam was captured by Belgian officers after a shootout on Friday and France deployed 1,600 police officers and gendarmes at the border and at major transit hubs following the arrest.

Belgium's Interior Minister, Jan Jambon, said on Monday the country was on high alert for a possible revenge attack following the capture of 26-year-old Abdeslam.

"We know that stopping one cell can... push others into action. We are aware of it in this case," he told public radio.

French investigator Francois Molins told a news conference in Paris on Saturday that Abdeslam, a French citizen born and raised in Brussels, admitted to investigators he had wanted to blow himself up along with others at the Stade de France on the night of the attack claimed by Islamic State; but he later backed out.
Alexander J. Saeedy contributed to this report.

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Dozens Killed by Multiple Explosions in Brussels Airport and Subway | VICE News

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Explosions tore through the departure hall of Brussels airport on Tuesday morning killing at least 14 people and injuring another 81. Shortly afterwards, a second blast struck a metro station in the Belgian capital, close to European Union (EU) institutions, which left an estimated 20 dead and more than 100 people wounded.

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vluchten naar Zaventem rerouted naar Frankfurt

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vluchten naar Zaventem rerouted naar Frankfurt

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bombings bij American airlines en Brussels airlines check in

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bombings bij American airlines en Brussels airlines check in

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Brussels Explosions - Official Reddit Live Thread**

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Schuman blijkbaar ook, die zijn kortbij de EU commisie gebouw

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Schuman blijkbaar ook, die zijn kortbij de EU commisie gebouw

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-Maalbeek

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian police arrested three more people on Friday as investigations into Tuesday's suicide bombings by Islamist militants in Brussels threw up more links to killings in Paris last year.

The federal prosecutor's office said the operation was connected to the arrest in Paris on Thursday of an Islamist convicted in Belgium last year and suspected of plotting a new attack.

Nine people in total have been arrested since Thursday in Belgium and two in Germany, as European authorities swoop on Islamic State militants they link both to the Brussels bombings that killed 31 people and to the attacks in Paris last November that killed 130.

Ahead of one of the arrests, heavily armed police and troops with trucks cordoned off an area around a major intersection in the northern Brussels borough of Schaerbeek. Three blasts could be heard, which the local mayor Bernard Clerfayt said were controlled explosions.

Belgian public broadcaster RTBF quoted Clerfayt as saying the suspect had been detained after being wounded and that he was linked to Tuesday's suicide bombings in Brussels.

It initially said he had been found to be in possession of a suitcase full of explosives but later news reports did not confirm that explosives were found.

Witnesses said police appeared to shoot the man in the leg at a tram stop and that he appeared to have his daughter with him.

"We heard 'Don't move'. The man was sitting at the bus stop, a bus stop with a glass wall, and we heard a small detonation and a big detonation," said Norman Kabir, 38, an electrician who lives and works nearby.

"Then the police came, took the little girl who was shouting 'Dad', she seemed terrified and the man got shot in the leg anyway because he was still moving," Kabir told reporters.

"Then the police asked him to move his bag. He was lying on the ground, but he did it and pushed the bag and a robot from the mine-sweeping brigade arrived. It came, grabbed the bag and took it away, then they took the guy, put him in a car and left. It took 20 seconds."

Video showed the man lying on his side, shattered glass from the tram shelter smashed by bullets at his feet.

Islamic State suicide bombers hit Brussels airport and a metro train on Tuesday in the worst such assaults in Belgian history. Investigators believe they were carried out by the same cell behind November's gun and bomb attacks in Paris.

MORE ARRESTS

The Belgian federal prosecutor's office said six people were held in Brussels on Thursday, of whom three were released and three were remanded in custody facing possible charges.

Three others were detained on Friday following the arrest overnight in France of Reda Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman sentenced to 10 years in absentia in Brussels last July as part of an Islamist recruiting network dubbed the Syrian Connection.

In the same case, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks later killed by French police, got 20 years, also in absentia, while Khalid Zerkani, a Moroccan recruiter of jihadis in Europe, was jailed for 12 years.

According to a report in Le Point magazine, Zerkani was a mentor to the two other men and to Najim Laachraoui, one of the Brussels airport bombers who is also suspected of having made explosive belts for the Paris attacks.

In Germany, Der Spiegel magazine said German police had arrested two people, one of whom had received phone messages with the name of the metro station bomber and the word "fin" - French for "end" - three minutes before the metro blast. The German interior ministry declined comment.

A person familiar with the investigation in Belgium said one of the people arrested there was believed to be a suspected accomplice caught on security camera footage with the metro station bomber.

"We have strong indications that this is the suspect who was hunted for the last couple of days. The identification is still ongoing," the source said. However he said those arrested before midday on Friday did not include a third suspect seen on video alongside the two who blew themselves up at the airport.

The attacks in Brussels, home to the European Union and NATO, have heightened security concerns around the world and raised questions about EU states' ability to respond in an effective, coordinated way to the Islamist militant threat.

Belgium's interior minister Jan Jambon on Friday blamed police negligence.

"Someone in our police apparatus blundered," he told a special session of parliament.

Jambon offered to resign on Thursday over a failure to track one of the airport bombers, Brahim El Bakraoui, 29, who had been expelled last year by Turkey as a suspected fighter. Bakraoui's brother Khalid, 26, was the bomber who struck the metro train.

"JE SUIS BRUXELLOIS, IK BEN BRUSSEL"

U.S Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Brussels on Friday to offer U.S. assistance in security. Two of the Brussels victims were Americans.

"Je suis bruxellois. Ik ben Brussel," Kerry said in French and Dutch, expressing solidarity with the people of Brussels in the two languages of the Belgian capital.

In Paris on Thursday, authorities arrested Kriket, a French national suspected of belonging to a militant network planning an attack in France. French officials did not directly tie that plot to the Brussels attacks, but Clerfayt, the Schaerbeek mayor, said the man wounded on Friday was linked to both investigations.

French President Francois Hollande said the hunt for Islamist militant cells would continue.

"We know there are other networks. Even if the one behind the attacks in Paris and Brussels is in the process of being wiped out, a threat is still there," he said.

The Brussels attacks came a week after Belgian police killed a militant during a house raid that led them to Salah Abdeslam, the only suspected participant in the Paris attacks to have been captured alive.

His lawyer says he has been cooperating with the investigation but did not know of the plan to attack Brussels.

However, on Friday prosecutors said Abdeslam had declined to talk about Tuesday's attacks, having declared soon after his capture that he would exercise his right to be silent.

Belgian daily De Morgen said investigators had identified a new suspect they believe played a role in the Brussels bombings, 28-year-old Syrian Naim al-Hamed. The paper said he was on a list circulated to the security services of other European countries after Tuesday's attacks, and was also suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks.

Islamic State posted a video on social media calling the Brussels blasts a victory and featuring the training of Belgian militants suspected in the Paris attacks.

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judicial process / court cases / court decisions

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Three more arrested in Brussels police operation over attacks

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian police arrested three more people on Friday as investigations into Tuesday's suicide bombings by Islamist militants in Brussels threw up more links to killings in Paris last year. The federal prosecutor's office said the operation was connected to the arrest in Paris on Thursday of an Islamist convicted in Belgium last year and suspected of plotting a new attack.

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https://twitter.com/PressTV/status/712192202928209921

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