Belgian police shoot suspect in Europe-wide terror crackdown

Several arrests were made as Belgian investigators uncovered alarming new evidence of a European extremist cell tied to the Brussels’ bombings, last November’s attacks in Paris and a new French plot.

Belgian police drag a suspect along a tramway platform – in this still image taken from amateur video – after the suspect was shot in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek on March 25, 2016. SudpresShow more

BRUSSELS // Belgian police shot a suspect as part of a huge European terror crackdown that made several arrests on Friday as France’s president said an extremist network that targeted both Paris and Brussels was being “destroyed”.

Grieving Belgians held prayers in the rain in a central Brussels square carpeted with flowers and tributes to the 31 dead and 300 wounded in Tuesday’s carnage, but there was also growing anger at the government for letting a string of militants slip through the net.

The raids came as under-fire Belgian investigators uncovered alarming new evidence of a European extremist cell tied to bombings at Brussels’ Zaventem international airport and metro system, last November’s attacks in Paris and a new French plot.

As US officials confirmed that two Americans were among the Brussels dead, secretary of state John Kerry said he stood by the Belgian people, referencing their support for the United States after the September 11 terror attacks.

“Then, voices across Europe declared, ‘Je suis Americain’. Now, we declare, ‘Je suis Bruxellois’ and ‘Ik ben Brussels,’ Mr Kerry said in French and Flemish, the country’s two main languages, after meeting Belgian prime minister Charles Michel.

European authorities are under huge pressure to better coordinate the tracking of home-grown extremists and fighters returning from Syria, as evidence grows of a thriving militant network straddling France and Belgium.

French president Francois Hollande said the network behind the Paris and Brussels attacks was “being destroyed” but warned that other terror cells remain.

French police said on Friday they had foiled a terror strike by 34-year-old Reda Kriket – a man previously convicted in Belgium in a terror case alongside Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud – after arresting him and discovering explosives at his home.

French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the arrest “foiled a planned attack in France, which was at an advanced stage”.

Belgian police later arrested three people in connection with the new French conspiracy.

In dramatic scenes, one of the suspects was shot in the leg at a tram stop in a huge operation by police in the Belgian capital’s Schaerbeek district, where police this week found a bomb factory linked to the Brussels attacks.

Officials said a series of raids in the capital on Thursday had also yielded six arrests.

Deepening the links between the Paris and Brussels attacks, Belgian prosecutors revealed that Brussels airport bomber Najim Laachraoui’s DNA was found on a suicide vest and a piece of cloth at the Bataclan concert hall and on a bomb at the Stade de France stadium, both sites struck in Paris last November.

Meanwhile, German police said they had arrested a 28-year-old Moroccan man whose text messages may link him to one of the Brussels bombers, the country's Der Spiegel news magazin and ARD TV channel reported.

A huge manhunt is still under way for at least two suspects – one of the airport attackers wearing a hat whose bomb failed to go off and another man seen in the metro with the bomber there.

Prosecutors have confirmed that Khalid El Bakraoui – who blew himself up at Maalbeek metro station shortly after his brother Ibrahim did the same at Zaventem airport – was the subject of an international warrant over the Paris attacks.

Investigators also say he rented an apartment in Brussels used by key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested in the Belgian capital last week.

The Belgian government has admitted “errors” and two ministers offered to resign on Thursday after Turkey said Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been arrested and deported and that Belgium had ignored warnings he was a “foreign terrorist fighter.”

The brothers were also listed in American terrorism databases, television network NBC reported.

Harrowing stories continued to emerge on Friday from the attacks, in which people of around 40 nationalities were killed or wounded.

Briton David Dixon, 51, who lived in Brussels, texted his aunt after the airport blasts to say he was safe, but happened to be on the metro system when a suicide bomber blew himself up, British media said.

Among only three fatalities formally named so far is Peruvian Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz, 37. Her husband Christophe Delcambe, and their three-year-old twin daughters, only survived because the girls had run off and their father had chased after them.

A Chinese national was also confirmed among those killed.

* Agence France-Presse