BRUSSELS // At least 35 people were killed in a series of bombings at Brussels airport and in the city’s metro yesterday as ISIL claimed yet another attack that shut down a European capital.
Two suicide bombers detonated their explosives at Zaventem international airport, leaving splattered blood in the departure lounge as windows were blown out, ceilings collapsed and travellers fled the smoky building.
An hour later, another bomb exploded on a rush-hour metro train near the European Union headquarters. Terrified passengers had to evacuate through darkened tunnels to safety.
Belgian authorities released pictures of two of the suicide attackers pushing trollies through the terminal and said they were “actively searching” for a third whose bomb failed to go off.
The coordinated assault injured 200 people, triggered security alerts across Europe and drew global expressions of support, four days after Brussels police had captured the the surviving member of a cell that attacked Paris last November.
“Belgium was hit by a blind, violent and cowardly attack,” said the country’s prime minister Charles Michel. “This is a day of tragedy, a black day … I would like to call on everyone to show calmness and solidarity”.
Belgium raised its terror alert to the highest level, diverting planes and trains and ordering people to stay where they were. EU buildings and office blocks were evacuated in the ‘European’ area of the city, with armed soldiers posted outside embassies and other key buildings. Airports across Europe immediately tightened security.
The first bombs went off shortly after 8am inside the departure hall at one of the busiest times for the airport. Witnesses described horrific scenes, with victims lying in pools of blood, their limbs blown off.
“A man shouted a few words in Arabic and then I heard a huge blast,” airport baggage security officer Alphonse Lyoura said, his hands bloodied.
“A lot of people lost limbs. One man had lost both legs and there was a policeman with a totally mangled leg.”
Graphic: Terror attacks rock Brussels
Lindsay Smith, an American resident of Abu Dhabi was checking in at the Etihad counter at the time of the first explosion.
“We heard a blast behind us and there was a lot of smoke,” she told The National. “We ducked and then grabbed our bag and ran, and then there was a second blast on the opposite side of the departure terminal. There was a lot of confusion and panic, we saw some people lying outside the terminal and some with minor injuries walking away.”
“We were a couple hundred feet away from the first explosion and a bit closer to the second,” said David Hughes, checking in with Delta for a flight to Atlanta.
“It was very surreal and chaotic. We ducked into an office and then were lead out by security personnel,” he said.
The explosions at the airport were followed an hour later by a huge blast at the Maalbeek metro station in the centre of the city, close to several European Union buildings and foreign embassies.
“There was a loud bang and I saw smoke come out of the station almost immediately, and someone came out covered in blood,” said Geoff Shuman, director for European Affairs for Airbus’s commercial aircraft division.
“I should have been on the metro at that time, but took my car into work instead. It’s disgusting, really shocking, everyone’s very upset.”
Pierre Meys, spokesman for the Brussels fire brigade, said at least 14 people had been killed at the airport, while Brussels mayor Yvan Mayeur said “around 20” died in the underground blast.
The fact that extremists were able to hit high-profile targets in Brussels, Europe’s symbolic capital and home to the Nato headquarters, just months after ISIL militants killed 130 people in Paris, will raise fresh questions about the continent’s ability to cope with the terror threat.
Belgian authorities had been on alert after Salah Abdeslam, Europe’s most wanted man, told investigators he had been planning an attack on Brussels.
An online news agency affiliated with ISIL said the group was behind the attacks.
“Islamic State fighters carried out a series of bombings with explosive belts and devices on Tuesday, targeting an airport and a central metro station in the centre of the Belgian capital Brussels, a country participating in the international coalition against the Islamic State,” the Aamaq site said.
There are fears more suspects could still be at large in Brussels, Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders warned.
Belgian authorities published surveillance camera images showing the three suspects pushing trollies with suitcases past the check-in area. Two have dark hair and were both wearing a glove on only one hand, and a third, being hunted by Belgian police, is wearing a hat and a white coat.
Several raids were also under way across Belgium, the federal prosecutor said, adding that a bomb, an ISIL flag and chemicals had been found in one apartment.
An army team earlier blew up a suspect package at the shuttered airport, with media reporting police had found an unexploded suicide vest.
Authorities later said a third bomb had failed to explode at the airport.
At Maalbeek station, paramedics tended to commuters with bloodied faces as the city’s normally peaceful streets filled with the wailing of sirens.
Airports across Europe swiftly announced they were boosting security, while across the Atlantic, New York and Washington ordered security personnel to crowded areas and train stations.
World reacted with outrage to the attack on the EU’s institutional capital, urging closer counter-terror cooperation on a continent that has been on high alert for months.
“The whole of Europe has been hit,” said French President Francois Hollande, whose country is still reeling from November’s Paris attacks.
British Prime Minister David Cameron warned of the “very real” terrorist threat faced by countries across Europe, declaring: “We will never left these terrorists win.”
US President Barack Obama said Washington stood with Belgium in the face of the “outrageous” attacks.
Security was also beefed up at Belgium’s nuclear plants and at EU buildings in the French city of Strasbourg, home to the European Parliament.
Interior Minister Jan Jambon announced that Belgium’s terror threat had been raised to its highest level.
Messages of solidarity poured out on social media, with thousands of people sharing images of beloved Belgian cartoon character Tintin in tears.
It has been a week of drama and bloodshed in Brussels. Last Tuesday saw a shootout in the city’s south that saw a Kalashnikov-wielding man killed and four police officers wounded.
Investigators believe key Paris suspect Abdeslam slipped out of the apartment as the gun battle broke out. He was arrested three days later in Brussels’ gritty Molenbeek district -- just around the corner from his family home.
Foreign Minister Reynders said at the weekend that Abdeslam -- believed to have played a key logistical role in the Paris carnage -- had told investigators he was planning some sort of new attack.
Shiraz Maher, a radicalisation expert at Kings College London, said it was “very likely that this attack will have been planned and prepared well in advance of last week’s arrest of Salah Abdeslam”.
“I’m shocked but I’m not surprised,” said one Brussels-based office worker who asked not to be indentified. “The threat’s always been very close, if you look at the events in Molenbeek. You can never predict the when and where of an attack like this, but it’s hard to keep a country on lock down for long periods.”
*With Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters