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Officials: Paris bombmaker among dead in Brussels attack Officials: Brussels bombers may have rushed attack
(about 2 hours later)
BRUSSELS — The suspected bombmaker in the Paris attacks in November was one of two suicide bombers who targeted the Brussels airport, officials said Wednesday, in a new sign that both attacks are linked to the same cell of the Islamic State group. BRUSSELS — As police hunted for the surviving Brussels bomber, evidence mounted Wednesday that the same Islamic State cell carried out the attacks in both Paris and Brussels, and that the militants may have launched this week’s slaughter in haste because they feared authorities were closing in on them.
The revelation that Najim Laachraoui was among the bombers came as Belgians began three days of mourning for the victims of the Brussels airport and subway bombings. The country remained on high alert as authorities hunted for one of the suspected attackers seen on surveillance video with Laachraoui and one other suicide bomber. On a day of mourning across Belgium following Tuesday’s bombings of the Brussels airport and subway that killed 31 people and wounded more than 270, new information emerged about the four attackers:
Turkish authorities, meanwhile, said they had caught one of the suicide bombers near the Turkish-Syrian border in July and sent him back to the Netherlands, warning both that country and Belgium that he was a “foreign terrorist fighter.” But a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly said the bomber was allowed to go free because Belgian authorities could not establish any ties to extremism. — European security officials said one of the suicide bombers was Najim Laachraoui, a Moroccan-born Belgian whom police have hunted as the suspected bombmaker in the Nov. 13 attacks on Paris by the Islamic State that killed 130 people.
Belgian authorities had been looking for Laachraoui since last week, suspecting him of being an accomplice of top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested on Friday. — The other two suicide bombers were Belgian-born brothers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, and his younger brother, Khalid, both known to the police as common criminals, not anti-Western radicals.
Two officials told The Associated Press that Laachraoui’s DNA was verified as that of one of the suicide bombers Tuesday, after samples were taken from remains found at the blast site at Brussels airport. One European official and one French police official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to divulge details of the Belgian investigation. Both officials were briefed on the investigation. — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ibrahim El Bakraoui was caught in June 2015 near Turkey’s border with Syria and deported, at his own request, to the Netherlands, with Ankara warning Dutch and Belgian officials that he was a “foreign terrorist fighter.” But other Turkish officials said he was released from Dutch custody due to lack of evidence of involvement in extremism.
Laachraoui is believed to have made the suicide vests used in the Paris attacks, a French police official told The Associated Press, adding that Laachraoui’s DNA was found on all of the vests as well as in a Brussels apartment where they were made. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation. Details of the investigation from chief prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw pointed to a rising sense of panic among the three bombers who blew themselves up. An unidentified fourth man who was shown in airport video surveillance footage remains at large after Van Leeuw said his suitcase bomb failed to detonate properly. Authorities say he was the man in a light jacket and hat on the far right of the video footage.
Several people who may be linked to the attacks were still on the loose and the country’s threat alert remained at its highest level, meaning there was danger of an imminent attack, said Paul Van Tigchelt, head of Belgium’s terrorism threat body. The attacks killed 31 people, not including three suicide bombers, and injured 270 others, authorities said. Van Leeuw said the bomb did partially explode after police had already evacuated the terminal, injuring nobody.
As government offices, schools and residents held a moment of silence to honor the dead, the mood was defiance mixed with anxiety that others involved in the attacks are still at large. The prosecutor said a laptop seized from a garbage can on a street outside the brothers’ last known address contained a message purportedly from Ibrahim El Bakraoui that indicated he was expecting to be arrested imminently following Friday’s capture in Brussels of the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam.
Belgian Federal Prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw identified two of the Brussels attackers as brothers — Ibrahim El Bakraoui, a suicide bomber at the airport, and Khalid El Bakraoui, who targeted the subway. “I don’t know what to do, I’m in a hurry, people are looking for me everywhere,” Van Leeuw quoted the message as saying. “If I give myself up I’ll end up in a cell next to him,” — an apparent reference to the just-arrested Abdeslam.
Investigators raided the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek after the attacks and found a computer in a trash can on the street including a note from Ibrahim El Bakraoui saying he felt increasingly unsafe and feared landing in prison. He was the brother who Turkish officials said was deported from Turkey to the Netherlands. Belgium’s justice minister said authorities there knew him as a common criminal, not an extremist, and that he was sent back to the Netherlands, not Belgium. Police were drawn to the brothers’ apartment Tuesday night thanks to a tip from a taxi driver who had unwittingly delivered them to the airport, Van Leeuw said. Inside the northeast Brussels residence they found an apparent bomb-making factory, including 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of homemade explosives and nails for use as shrapnel.
A taxi driver who took Ibrahim El Bakraoui and two others to the airport led investigators to an apartment where they found 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of TATP explosives, along with nails and other materials used to make bombs, Van Leeuw said. Neighbors told The Associated Press they had no idea of the brothers’ activities and barely saw them until the taxi collected them and their visibly heavy bags Tuesday morning.
Two were suicide bombers, the prosecutor said; the other was a man in a white jacket and black cap who fled before the bombs went off, leaving behind a bag full of explosives. That bag later blew up, but no one was injured. One neighbor, who was willing to give only his first name of Erdine, said he was about to drive his son to school when he saw the two men carrying their bags out of the building.
The Islamic State group, which was behind the Paris attacks, has also claimed responsibility for the Brussels bombings. “The taxi driver tried to get the luggage. And the other guy reached for it like he was saying: No, I’ll take it,” the neighbor said.
Belgian state broadcaster RTBF, citing sources it didn’t identify, said Khalid El Bakraoui had rented an apartment that was raided last week in an operation that led authorities to Abdeslam. At the core of the Belgian investigation is a photo taken from the airport’s surveillance cameras showing three attackers walking side by side as they push luggage carts. Van Leeuw said the middle figure has been identified as Ibrahim El Bakraoui, while the two men flanking him remained unidentified.
Abdeslam was arrested Friday in the Brussels neighborhood where he grew up, a rough place with links to several of the attackers who targeted a Paris stadium, rock concert and cafes on Nov. 13. Those attacks killed 130 people. But two security officials told the AP that Laachraoui’s DNA was verified as that of one of Tuesday’s suicide bombers after samples were taken from remains found at the airport. One European official and one French police official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to divulge details of the Belgian investigation. Both officials were briefed on the investigation.
A Belgian official working on the investigation told the AP that it is a “plausible hypothesis” that Abdeslam was part of the cell linked to the Brussels attack. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation. Belgian officials have not publicly linked any of the remains to Laachraoui; nor have they said he was involved in the Brussels attack.
French and Belgian authorities have said in recent days that the network behind the Paris attacks was much larger than initially thought — and developments this week suggest the same group could have staged both the Paris and Brussels attacks. Since prosecutors said Khalid El Bakraoui was killed in the subway bombing, that would make Laachraoui the remaining unidentified figure on the far left of the airport video footage.
The airport and several Brussels metro stations remained closed Wednesday, and authorities said the airport would remain closed at least through Thursday, forcing the cancellation of 600 flights each day. Security forces stood guard around the neighborhood housing the headquarters of European Union institutions, as nervous Brussels residents began returning to school and work under a misty rain. Belgian authorities have been looking for Laachraoui since last week, suspecting him of being an accomplice to Abdeslam, who was arrested Friday in the Brussels neighborhood where he grew up.
Thousands of people gathered at Place de la Bourse in the center of downtown Brussels — including dozens of students chanting “stop the war” — in solidarity with those killed. Laachraoui is believed to have made the suicide vests used in Paris, a French police official told the AP, adding that Laachraoui’s DNA was found on all of the vests as well as in a Brussels apartment where they were made. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation. Seven of the Paris attackers blew themselves up or were slain by police.
“In Belgium, it’s not every day that we show solidarity politically,” said Fanny Nicaise, 24. She came out with some friends just to see and be with others. “It’s important that you aren’t alone in your sadness.” French and Belgian authorities have said the network behind the Paris attacks was much larger than initially thought — and developments this week suggest the same group could have staged the violence both in Paris and Brussels.
Belgians paid homage and lit candles, the mood almost buoyant as people wrote on the ground with big sticks of chalk, drawing peace signs and hearts. “It’s the same team,” said a French senator, Nathalie Goulet, who is co-leader of a parliamentary commission on studying jihadi networks.
As befits an international city like Brussels, the foreign minister said the dead collectively held at least 40 nationalities. She said Abdeslam should have had little difficulty organizing more recruits following his November escape from France.
“It’s a war that terrorism has declared not only on France and on Europe, but on the world,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Wednesday on Europe-1 radio. Valls, who planned to visit Brussels later Wednesday, urged tougher controls of the EU’s external borders. “He probably had 10 more at hand who would be ready to do the same thing tomorrow morning,” she said, describing his Brussels acolytes as “like a scout troop ... a troop of death.”
“We must be able to face the extension of radical Islamism ... that spreads in some of our neighborhoods and perverts our youth,” he said. The Paris attackers were mainly French and Belgian citizens of North African descent, some from neighborhoods that struggle with discrimination, unemployment and alienation. A Belgian official working on the investigation told AP it is a “plausible hypothesis” that Abdeslam was helping to organize the Brussels attack. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation.
In its claim of responsibility, the Islamic State group said its members detonated suicide vests both at the airport and in the subway, where many passengers fled to safety down dark tunnels filled with hazy smoke from the explosion. IS warned of further attacks, issuing a statement promising “dark days” for countries taking part in the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition in Syria and Iraq. The comments by the Turkish president that Ibrahim El Bakraoui was determined by his country to be a militant fighter and then deported to Europe could raise embarrassing questions for Western security officials.
European security officials have been bracing for a major attack for weeks and had warned that IS was actively preparing to strike. But a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly said the bomber was allowed to go free because Belgian authorities could not establish any ties to extremism.
Valls said Wednesday that big events, be they sports or cultural, must not be put on hold for fear of attacks. He said that includes the Euro 2016 soccer tournament, a monthlong event being held in France that starts in June. Meanwhile, the Belgian football federation announced that it was calling off an international soccer friendly match against Portugal next week because of the attacks. Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said authorities would have no reason to have detained Ibrahim El Bakraoui last year as an Islamic State suspect because he was “not known for terrorist acts but as a common law criminal who was on conditional release.”
Ibrahim El Bakraoui, 29, received a nine-year prison sentence in 2010 for shooting at police following an attempted robbery of a currency exchange, while Khalid El Bakraoui, 27, served a brief sentence for attempted carjacking.
Belgian state broadcaster RTBF, citing sources it did not identify, said Khalid El Bakraoui had rented an apartment that police raided last week in an operation that directly led to Abdeslam’s arrest at another apartment just a few streets away from his parents’ home.
Wednesday was the first of three official days of mourning, and thousands gathered at the Place de la Bourse, a central square in Brussels, to remember the victims.
“Long live Belgium!” some declared.
The attacks badly rattled Brussels’ transportation links. Several subway stations in the city center and at the airport remained closed. Officials at the airport, which typically handles 600 flights daily, said it would remain shut down until at least Saturday.
Many of the dead remained unidentified, partly because of the severity of devastation caused by the nail-packed bombs detonated in crowds. Eleven people were confirmed dead at the airport, 20 inside the Maelbeek subway station.
In a second claim of responsibility Wednesday, the Islamic State group warned of further attacks and what it called “dark days” for countries involved in attacking IS positions in Syria and Iraq.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said major cultural and sports events should not be postponed for fear of attack. He said that includes the monthlong European soccer tournament being staged throughout France in June.
A planned soccer match between Belgium and Portugal, originally scheduled for March 29 in Brussels, was moved to Portugal.
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Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds in London; John-Thor Dahlburg, Raphael Satter, Danica Kirka and Angela Charlton in Brussels; and Lori Hinnant and Elaine Ganley in Paris, contributed to this report. Associated Press reporters Raphael Satter, Danica Kirka and Lorne Cook in Brussels, Lori Hinnant and Elaine Ganley in Paris, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Jill Lawless in London and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed to this report.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.