A series of explosions claimed by the Islamic State (IS) yesterday ripped through Belgian capital city Brussels’ airport and a metro train, killing 31 people.
Two huge blasts, at least one of which prosecutors said was likely caused by a suicide bomber, rocked the check-in hall at Zaventem Airport, strewing the scene with blood and mangled bodies and sending hundreds of terrified travellers fleeing in terror.
Extremists’ attacks on high-profile targets in Brussels, Europe’s symbolic capital, just months after Islamic State (IS) group militants killed 130 people in Paris, will raise fresh questions about Europe’s ability to cope with the terror threat.
More than 200 people were injured in yesterday’s attacks, which came just four days after the dramatic arrest, in Brussels, of Salah Abdeslam – the prime suspect in the Paris attacks – after four months on the run.
Belgian authorities had been on alert after Abdeslam, Europe’s most wanted man, told investigators he had been planning an attack on Brussels.
An online news agency affiliated with IS said the group was behind the attacks.
Hundreds of flights and trains were cancelled as security across Europe was tightened after the bombings, which Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel branded “blind, violent and cowardly”.
“This is a day of tragedy, a black day,” Michel said. His spokesman also announced three days of national mourning.
Shortly after the airport blasts hit at around 8:00am (0700 GMT), a third explosion rocked Maalbeek metro station, in the heart of the city’s European Union (EU) quarter, as rush-hour commuters were making their way to work.
There are fears more suspects could still be at large in Brussels, home to the headquarters of both NATO and the European Union, Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders warned.
Belgian authorities published surveillance camera images showing three male suspects pushing trollies with suitcases past the check-in area. Two have dark hair and one is wearing a hat.
Pierre Meys, spokesman for the Brussels fire brigade, told AFP at least 14 people had been killed at the airport, while Brussels mayor Yvan Mayeur said “around 20” died in the underground blast”.
Witnesses described horrific scenes at the airport, with victims lying in pools of blood, their limbs blown off. There were chaotic scenes as passengers fled in panic, and plumes of dark smoke could be seen rising from holes punched through the roof of the building by the blasts.
Samir Derrouich, who works at an airport restaurant, said: “The two explosions were almost simultaneous. They were both at check in desk. One was close to the Starbucks. It was awful. There was just blood. It was like the apocalypse.”
Anthony Deloos, an employee of services company Swissport, said he had leapt on a luggage chute “to be safe” from the explosions, which he estimated were about 20 metres away from him.
He said the first explosion was near a counter where customers pay for overweight luggage, while the second blast was near the airport’s Starbucks.
Jef Versele, 40, from Ghent, Belgium, was at the airport and described the scene as “unbelievable”.
He said: “I was on my way to check in and two bombs went off – two explosions. “I didn’t see anything. Everything was coming down. Glassware. It was chaos, it was unbelievable. It was the worst thing.”
He added: “People were running away, there were lots of people on the ground. A lot of people are injured.”
An army team later 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 attended to commuters with bloodied faces as the city’s normally peaceful streets filled with the wailing of sirens.
Investigators believe key Paris suspect Abdeslam slipped out of the apartment as the gun battle broke out. He was arrested three days laterin Brussels’ gritty Molenbeek district – just around the corner from his family home.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier 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”.
The bombs used during the terrorist attack on the airport contained nails, an official from a hospital treating some of the victims told the Belga News Agency.
Thirteen victims, five with serious injuries were rushed to Gasthuisberg hospital in the city of Leuven.
Its head, Marc Decramer, was quoted as saying that most of the victims suffered fractures, burns and serious cuts caused by metallic objects.
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