Police shoot dead suspected extremist accused of killing 2 Swedish soccer fans in Brussels
BRUSSELS — Police in Belgium on Tuesday shot dead a suspected Tunisian extremist accused of killing two Swedish soccer fans in a brazen shooting on a Brussels street before disappearing into the night.
Hours after a manhunt began in the Belgian capital, Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden posted on X, formerly Twitter, that “the perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Brussels has been identified and has died.”
She thanked Belgium’s intelligence and security services, as well as the public prosecutor’s office, “for their swift and decisive action last night and this morning.” The man was shot by police in the Schaerbeek neighborhood near where the killings took place. The weapon used in the assault was recovered.
Amateur videos posted on social media of Monday’s attack showed a man wearing an orange fluorescent vest pulling up on a scooter, taking out a large weapon and opening fire on people getting out of a taxi before chasing them into a building to gun them down. He was also filmed calmly loading his weapon as cars drove slowly by.
Questions remain over how a man who was on police files, thought to be radicalized and being sought for deportation was able to obtain a military weapon and launch such an attack.
“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,” Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said at a news conference just before dawn. “Their lives were cut short in full flight, cut down by extreme brutality.”
France will mobilize up to 7,000 soldiers to increase security around the country after a teacher was fatally stabbed and three other people wounded in a school attack.
“The attack that was launched yesterday was committed with total cowardice,” De Croo said. Security has been beefed up in the Belgian capital, particularly around places linked to the Swedish community, and at Belgium’s southern border with France.
Not far from the scene of the shooting, the Belgium-Sweden soccer match in the Belgian national stadium was suspended at halftime and the 35,000 fans were kept inside as a precaution while the attacker was at large.
“Frustrated, confused, scared. I think everyone was quite scared,” said Caroline Lochs, a fan from Antwerp.
At a news conference in Stockholm, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that “everything indicates this is a terrorist attack against Sweden and Swedish citizens, just because they are Swedish.” He said the suspect had occasionally stayed in Sweden but was not on police files there.
Putin’s desperation over humiliating military losses in his war on Ukraine could lead Moscow to back terror attacks against Western countries.
“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.”
Kristersson has been invited to Brussels to mourn the victims and pay tribute to the work of police at a commemoration ceremony Wednesday, De Croo said on X, adding: “We wish the people of Sweden strength and courage to get through these difficult times.”
Sweden’s Foreign Ministry said the two Swedes killed were men in their 60s and 70s. A third man, also in his 70s, was wounded and remains in the hospital.
De Croo said the assailant was a Tunisian man living illegally in Belgium who used a military weapon to kill the two Swedes and shoot a third, who is being treated for ”severe injuries.”
Sweden is stepping up border controls and identity checks as its security situation deteriorates amid a Quran burning crisis also shaking Denmark.
Federal prosecutors said later that the suspect was found after a witness claimed to have spotted him in a Schaerbeek cafe. Police arrived at the scene, and the suspect was shot as they tried to arrest him. First responders attempted to save the man, but he later died in the hospital.
“A military weapon and a bag of clothes were found,” a statement said.
Federal Prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw described how the suspected shooter, a 45-year-old man who wasn’t identified, had posted a video online claiming to have killed three Swedish people.
The suspect is alleged to have said in the video that, for him, the Quran is “a red line for which he is ready to sacrifice himself.”
A shooting attack at a Jehovah’s Witnesses hall in Hamburg, Germany, left six people dead. The gunman killed himself, police said.
Sweden raised its terror alert to the second-highest level in August after a series of public Quran-burnings by an Iraqi refugee living in Sweden resulted in threats from Islamic militant groups.
Belgian prosecutors said overnight that nothing suggested the attack was linked to the latest war between Israel and Hamas.
Police overnight raided a building in the Schaerbeek neighborhood where the man was thought be staying but did not find him. Sweden’s Foreign Ministry sent out a text message to subscribers in Belgium asking them “to be vigilant and to carefully listen to instructions from the Belgian authorities.”
According to Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, the suspect was denied asylum in 2019. He was known to police and had been suspected of involvement of human trafficking, living illegally in Belgium and being a risk to state security.
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Information provided to the Belgian authorities by an unidentified foreign government suggested that the man had been radicalized and intended to travel abroad to fight in a holy war. But the Belgian authorities were not able to establish this, so he was never listed as dangerous.
The man was also suspected of threatening a person in an asylum center, and a hearing on that incident had been due to take place Tuesday, Van Quickenborne said.
Belgian Asylum State Secretary Nicole de Moor said the man disappeared after his asylum application was refused, and so the authorities were unable to locate him to organize his deportation.
A terror alert for Brussels was raised overnight to 4, the top of Belgium’s scale, indicating an extremely serious threat. It previously stood at 2, which meant the threat was average. The alert level for the rest of the country was raised to 3.
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