By LORNE COOK, SYLVAIN PLAZY and RAF CASERT (Associated Press)
BRUSSELS (AP) — Authorities within the Belgian capital shot and killed a Tunisian nationwide on Tuesday hours after they are saying he gunned down three Swedish soccer followers, killing two of them, and posted a video on-line during which he claimed credit score for the assault and stated the Quran was “a red line for which he is ready to sacrifice himself.”
Investigators are nonetheless making an attempt to find out the motive for Monday night time’s assault, which occurred not removed from the place Belgium’s males’s soccer group was internet hosting Sweden in a European Championships qualifier. The match was suspended at halftime and the greater than 35,000 followers have been saved contained in the stadium as a precaution whereas the attacker was at massive.
Amateur movies of the assault posted on social media confirmed a person carrying an orange fluorescent vest pull up on a scooter, take out a big weapon and open hearth on folks getting out of a taxi. He chased them right into a constructing to gun them down. He was additionally filmed calmly loading his weapon as automobiles drove by slowly.
Sweden’s overseas ministry stated the boys who have been killed have been of their 60s and 70s, and the person who was wounded is in his 70s and stays hospitalized.
Hours after the suspect disappeared into the night time and a manhunt was launched, Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden posted on X, previously Twitter, that “the perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Brussels has been identified and has died.”
She thanked Belgium’s intelligence and safety providers, in addition to prosecutors, “for their swift and decisive action.” The man was shot within the Schaerbeek neighborhood close to the place the assault occurred.
Federal prosecutors stated later that the suspect, a 45-year-old Tunisian man who had been residing in Belgium illegally and whose identify hasn’t been launched, was discovered after a witness noticed him in a Schaerbeek cafe. Police arrived on the scene and the suspect was shot as they tried to arrest him. First responders tried to avoid wasting the person, however he later died in hospital.
The weapon used within the assault, an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle, and a bag of garments have been recovered on the scene, federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw stated at a Tuesday night information convention. Police launched 4 raids Tuesday morning and detained two folks for questioning over their attainable hyperlinks to the suspect, he stated, noting that authorities haven’t dominated out the chance that he might need had assist.
“It does not seem at the stage of the investigation that the terrorist attack was organized by a large terror network,” Van Leeuw stated. “The hypothesis that he was acting as a lone wolf seems more likely.”
Police additionally discovered two handguns and a knife near the place the suspect had been residing, he stated.
At a pre-dawn information convention, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo known as the assault an act of “total cowardice” and stated safety had been beefed up in Brussels. It was noticeably boosted round locations linked to the Swedish neighborhood and at Belgium’s southern border with France.
“Last night, three people left for what was supposed to be a wonderful soccer party. Two of them lost their lives in a brutal terrorist attack,” De Croo stated. “Their lives were cut short in full flight, cut down by extreme brutality.”
The assault comes amid heightened world tensions over the struggle between Israel and Hamas. France’s anti-terror prosecutor stated Tuesday {that a} suspected Islamic extremist declared allegiance to the Islamic State group earlier than fatally stabbing a instructor at a French faculty assault final week. However, Belgian prosecutors stated nothing means that Monday’s assault was linked to what’s taking place in Israel and Gaza.
At a information convention in Stockholm, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stated that “everything indicates this is a terrorist attack against Sweden and Swedish citizens, just because they are Swedish.” He stated the suspect had sometimes stayed in Sweden however was not on police information there.
“It’s not an unusual pattern to move around,” Kristersson added. “We have an openness in Europe, which is one of the important reasons why we need to keep an eye on the EU’s external border because otherwise people can easily move between European countries.”
Van Leeuw stated the suspect posted a video on-line claiming to have killed three Swedish folks and saying the Quran was “a red line for which he is ready to sacrifice himself.”
Sweden raised its terror alert to the second-highest degree in August after a collection of public Quran burnings by an Iraqi refugee residing in Sweden resulted in threats from Islamic militant teams.
Asked if this is likely to be a attainable motive, federal prosecutor Eric Van Duyse advised The Associated Press that it’s too early to inform. “The connection seems easy to make, but we must have evidence, we must have proof.”
Questions stay over how a person whose identify was in police information, who was thought to have been radicalized and who was being searched for deportation was capable of receive such a weapon and launch such an assault.
According to Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, the suspect was denied asylum in 2019. He was identified to police and had been suspected of involvement of human trafficking, residing illegally in Belgium and of being a threat to state safety.
Information supplied to the Belgian authorities by an unidentified overseas authorities instructed that the person had been radicalized and meant to journey overseas to battle in a holy struggle. But the Belgian authorities weren’t capable of set up this, so he was by no means listed as harmful.
Belgian Asylum State Secretary Nicole de Moor stated the person disappeared after his asylum utility was refused, so authorities have been unable to find him to prepare his deportation.
Jesper Tengroth, a spokesman for the Swedish Migration Agency, advised Swedish public radio that the suspected gunman lived in Sweden from 2012-2014 and spent a part of that point in jail earlier than being despatched to a different EU nation beneath the Dublin guidelines. Tengroth declined to say which crime the person was convicted of or which nation he was despatched to after finishing his sentence.
After being raised to its highest degree, 4, simply after the assault, the fear alert for Brussels was lowered to a 3, in keeping with the remainder of Belgium, indicating a reasonable risk.
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Associated Press writers Samuel Petrequin, Karl Ritter in Stockholm and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”