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Second suicide bomber at Brussels Airport was Islamic State bombmaker, intelligence officials say Anti-terrorism crackdowns may have spurred attackers, Belgian prosecutor says
(about 4 hours later)
BRUSSELS — An Islamic State bombmaker whose DNA connected him to November’s Paris attacks was one of two suicide bombers at Brussels Airport, two intelligence officials said Wednesday, the strongest link yet between two Islamic State attacks that have stunned Europe with their power and planning. BRUSSELS — The four men — two of them brothers — who turned ordinary morning commutes in Brussels into blood-soaked nightmares may have been spurred into action by fears that authorities were closing in on them, according to a note left by one of the attackers that was described by a prosecutor Wednesday.
Najim Laachraoui, 24, who is believed to have prepared explosives for the November Paris attacks, blew himself up at Brussels Airport on Tuesday, according to two intelligence officials, one Arab and one European, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive findings. Days before the attacks on Tuesday, counter­terrorism police had raided their Brussels safe houses. An ally who took part in November’s Paris carnage was shot and captured by authorities. And Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, a 29-year-old Belgian with a thick rap sheet, wrote that he did not want to wind up in a prison cell, Belgian federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said Wednesday.
Laachraoui, who Belgian prosecutors earlier Wednesday said they believed was on the loose, joined forces in the suicide attack with Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, 29, a Belgian with an extensive criminal record. A third man who left a bomb in the airport but escaped is still at large, prosecutors said Wednesday. Bakraoui’s younger brother, Khalid el-Bakraoui, 27, carried out a suicide bombing on the Brussels metro 73 minutes after the initial attack at the airport, prosecutors said Wednesday. The men — at least two of whom had direct ties to the Islamic State’s attacks in Paris — knew they had to act decisively. So they set out with explosives that ripped open a Brussels subway car and shattered the city’s main airport terminal, killing at least 31 people and injuring 300 in the bloodiest attack on Belgian soil since World War II.
The Islamic State terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the bombings, which killed at least 31 people and injured 270. Bakraoui detonated a suitcase full of nails, screws and powerful explosives at the airport, killing himself in the process, Van Leeuw said. So did Islamic State bombmaker Najim Laachraoui, 24, who is also believed to have prepared explosives for the Paris attacks, according to an Arab intelligence official and a European intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
[Who is the suspected bombmaker?] An unidentified man who left an even larger suitcase of explosives at the airport is believed to still be at large, Van Leeuw said. That suitcase did not immediately detonate, sparing Belgium further casualties.
Fears that authorities were closing in may help explain the involvement of Laachraoui in the suicide bombing at the airport. Terrorism experts regard bombmakers, especially those trained in handling sensitive explosives, as among the most valuable and protected members of a terrorist organization. It is highly unusual for them to participate in suicide attacks themselves. [A quiet morning in Brussels ends in gruesome terrorist attacks]
The other suicide bomber at the airport wrote of fears that counterterrorism agents were closing in, authorities said Wednesday. The country held a national minute of silence Wednesday led by Prime Minister Charles Michel, who laid a wreath at the Maelbeek metro station in honor of the victims. Thousands of Belgians gathered in a somber ceremony in front of an ornate 19th-century stock exchange building to light candles and lay flowers.
The missive, contained in a discarded computer, did not specifically cite recent raids across Belgium. But its tone suggested a sense that the noose was tightening, according to Belgium’s federal prosecutor, Frederic Van Leeuw. A raid Friday in Brussels netted Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in last year’s Paris attacks. The missive, contained in a computer that had been chucked into a garbage can near Bakraoui’s Brussels apartment, does not specifically cite recent raids across Belgium, including one that netted a key suspect in last year’s Paris attacks. But its tone suggests a sense that the noose was tightening, Van Leeuw said.
The computer message also provided insight into the tactics, organization and motivation of the militants who perpetrated the worst attacks on Belgian soil since World War II, and possibly a deeper look into the wider network linked to last year’s Paris massacres. The computer message also gives apparent insight into the organization and motivation of militants who apparently turned their attention to Brussels after pulling off the Paris attacks that killed 130 people.
At least one of the men believed to have been a suicide attacker was deported to Europe from Turkey in July 2015 after Turkey determined he was a militant, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday. He suggested that counterterrorism officials had the militant on their radar long before the November Paris attacks or Tuesday’s bloodshed in Brussels. Interpol had also issued a “red notice,” effectively an international arrest warrant, for one of the suspects at the request of Belgian authorities. In the note, Bakraoui described feeling pressure bearing down. He wrote that he was “in a hurry, no longer knowing what to do, being searched for everywhere, no longer secure,” according to Van Leeuw’s description of the message, which was not made public.
[‘People who died weren’t whole anymore. They were in pieces.’] Laachraoui’s involvement draws the boldest line yet between the Paris attacks and those in Brussels. His DNA was found on explosives in the Paris attacks, and authorities believe that he was versed in the Islamic State art of assembling powerful explosives from ingredients that are readily available. His participation in two attacks suggests that the Islamic State is increasingly able to strike on European soil — although his death may also mean that he feared imminent capture by European authorities.
In the note — discovered on a computer dumped near an apartment containing bombmaking material — one of the suspected suicide attackers, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, apparently described feeling pressure bearing down. Terrorism experts regard bomb­makers, especially those trained in handling sensitive explosives, as among the most valuable and protected members of a terrorist organization. It is highly unusual for them to participate in suicide attacks themselves.
He wrote that he was “in a hurry, no longer know what to do, being searched for everywhere, no longer secure,” according to Van Leeuw’s description of the message, which was not made public. [Why is Brussels under attack?]
Authorities now believe that the bombers had close connections to the Paris attackers. Laachraoui’s DNA was found in a Brussels apartment raided last week. The discovery of a militant cell there eventually led to the arrest of Salah Abdeslam on Friday. Abdeslam was the final at-large direct participant in the Paris attacks and is believed to have been the logistics mastermind.
The same bombmaker may have been involved in both attacks, and Khalid el-Bakraoui is believed to have used an assumed name to rent a Brussels-area apartment where Abdeslam’s fingerprints were found last week. The computer file that prosecutors cited Wednesday does not mention Abdeslam by name, but it says the attackers feared that if they did not strike quickly, they risked winding up in prison alongside “him.”
The computer file does not mention Abdeslam by name, but it says the attackers feared that if they did not strike quickly, they risked winding up in prison alongside “him.” “If they drag on, they risk finishing next to him in a cell,” Van Leeuw said, paraphrasing the contents of the file.
“If they drag on, they risk finishing next to him in a cell,” Van Leeuw said, paraphrasing the content of the file. Van Leeuw described the file as a “will” discovered on a computer. He did not explain why authorities believed the computer belonged to Bakraoui.
Van Leeuw described the file as a “will.” He did not explain why authorities believed the computer belonged to Ibrahim el-Bakraoui. Bakraoui’s younger brother, Khalid el-Bakraoui, 27, is believed to have been the suicide bomber on a Brussels subway car that blew up as it sped out of a station underneath the heart of the European Union quarter of Brussels, an area packed with embassies and international organizations. That attack came 73 minutes after the one at the airport, meaning that commuters were already reading the news of the first explosions when the carnage reached them.
[Likely explosives used nicknamed “Mother of Satan”] Khalid el-Bakraoui appears to have been a kind of surreptitious real estate broker for the plotters, according to a European security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case. He used assumed names to rent an apartment in the Forest area of Brussels where Abdeslam’s fingerprints were found and an apartment near Charleroi, Belgium, where Paris attack mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud stayed as he plotted the violence.
Authorities also found large stockpiles of bomb-building materials at his apartment in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels, the prosecutor said: 33 pounds of TATP explosives, nearly 40 gallons of acetone, eight gallons of hydrogen peroxide, detonators and a suitcase full of nails and screws. Both Bakraoui brothers served prison time for violent crime, the European security official said. The announcement on Wednesday that two of the attackers were brothers highlighted another emerging tactic from the militant group: They would be the third pair of brothers involved in an Islamic State attack in Europe in the past 15 months.
Khalid el-Bakraoui, the younger brother, was identified by his DNA in the attack on the subway, the prosecutor said. Ibrahim el-Bakraoui was identified by fingerprints recovered at the scene of the airport blast. European security leaders planned to gather Thursday in Brussels to discuss whether to pursue new policies that would better pool information to counter terrorism.
Belgian media initially reported that a suspect arrested Wednesday was Laachraoui, 24. But those reports were later retracted. His DNA was found on at least one bomb used in the Paris attacks. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, visiting Brussels on Wednesday to extend his condolences, repeated past calls for sweeping new powers to be given to European intelligence agencies.
The latest violence has left European leaders again scrambling for ways to plug holes in security, even though it became increasingly clear Wednesday that at least one of the attackers had repeatedly passed through security nets without being detained by European authorities. “In the years to come, the [E.U.] member states will have to invest massively in their security systems,” Valls said.
Turkey warned European authorities that one of the suspected suicide bombers was a “foreign terrorist fighter,” Erdogan, the Turkish leader, said Wednesday. A Turkish official cited by the Associated Press later said that the suspect was Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and that in July 2015 he had been deported to the Netherlands at his request. European authorities let him go because they could not establish links to terrorism, Erdogan said. [Brussels terrorists probably used explosive nicknamed ‘the Mother of Satan’]
[How Belgium became a hub for militants] Van Leeuw, the Belgian prosecutor, said the brothers had not previously been suspected of ties to terrorism.
In Brussels, leaders called for new powers to fight terrorism, although it was unclear whether there would be any progress this time, since similar proposals were made, then rejected, after last year’s attacks in Paris. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that Turkey had deported one of the attackers to Europe in July and warned European counter­terrorism officials that it believed the man was a militant, suggesting a serious lapse by Belgian authorities. Interpol had also issued a “red notice,” effectively an international arrest warrant, for one of the suspects at the request of Belgian authorities. It was not immediately clear when that notice had been issued.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls repeated calls for sweeping new powers to be given to European intelligence agencies, warning that the future of European unity is at stake. There were signs that an even bigger attack had been forestalled. Authorities found large stockpiles of bomb-building materials at Ibrahim el-Bakraoui’s apartment in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels, the prosecutor said: 33 pounds of TATP explosives, nearly 40 gallons of acetone, 8 gallons of hydrogen peroxide, detonators, and a suitcase full of nails and screws. Both acetone and hydrogen peroxide are easily obtainable; together they can be used to make potent explosives.
“If the European project is running out of steam, if the populists are gaining in popularity, it’s because a lot of speeches are not followed up in reality,” Valls said Wednesday in Brussels, criticizing the vows for reform that have followed other recent terrorist attacks but yielded few concrete changes. It remained unclear Wednesday how many Americans had been killed in the blasts. In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said that “approximately a dozen” Americans were injured but that “a number” of U.S. citizens remained unaccounted for on Wednesday — without providing more specific figures. He said that U.S. diplomatic missions in Brussels were working to account for all of their own staff.
“In the years to come, the [E.U.] member states will have to invest massively in their security systems,” he said. Secretary of State John F. Kerry plans to visit Brussels on Friday on his way back from a trip to Moscow.
In further signs of jitters across Belgium, sports officials called off a soccer match between Belgium and Portugal scheduled for Tuesday in Brussels “because of security concerns.”
Brussels Airport will remain closed at least through Friday, officials said. At Brussels’s main synagogue, events marking the Purim holiday were called off.
Authorities had been bracing for a possible attack in Belgium for months as the country struggled to stem a tide of homegrown extremism and as the Islamic State repeatedly threatened to hit Europe in its core.
[Has terrorism become the new normal in Europe?]
The attack at the airport could have been far worse, said Belgium’s federal prosecutor, Van Leeuw. The biggest bomb — packed inside the suitcase that was wheeled on a cart by the man now being sought by a massive dragnet — failed to go off, he told reporters.
In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said that “approximately a dozen” Americans were injured in the blasts, but that “a number” of U.S. citizens remained unaccounted for on Wednesday — without providing more specific figures.
Griff Witte, Missy Ryan, James McAuley and Anthony Faiola in Brussels and Brian Murphy and William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.Griff Witte, Missy Ryan, James McAuley and Anthony Faiola in Brussels and Brian Murphy and William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.
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