Belgian police shoot suspect in Europe-wide raids as Francois Hollande claims terrorist cell in ‘being destroyed’
A huge manhunt is still under way for at least two suspects – one of the airport attackers whose bomb failed to go off and another man seen in the metro with the bomber there.
Belgian police shot a suspect as part of a huge European terror crackdown that netted several arrests on Friday as France’s president said a jihadist network that targeted both Paris and Brussels was being “destroyed”.
Grieving Belgians held prayers in the rain in a central Brussels square carpeted with flowers and tributes to the 31 dead and 300 wounded in Tuesday’s carnage, but there was also growing anger at the government for letting a string of militants slip through the net.
The raids came as under-fire Belgian investigators uncovered alarming new evidence of a European jihadist cell tied to bombings at Brussels’ airport and metro, November’s Paris attacks and a new French plot.
“Even if the one that committed the attacks in Paris and Brussels is in the process of being destroyed... there is still a heavy threat,” French President Francois Hollande said.
The Belgian government has admitted “errors” and two ministers offered to resign after Turkey said Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up in the airport attack, had been arrested and deported and that Belgium had ignored warnings that he was a “foreign terrorist fighter”.
Even if the [terrorist cell] that committed the attacks in Paris and Brussels is in the process of being destroyed... there is still a heavy threat
Ibrahim and his brother Khalid, the suicide bomber in the metro attack, were also on a US counterterrorism watch list, CNN reported.
