Terrorist Attacks in Brussels
March 23, 2016
Belgian police and emergency personnel secure the area near the Maelbeek subway station following an explosion on March 22, 2016. Credit: © Vincent Kessler, Reuters
Three explosions in the Belgian capital of Brussels yesterday, March 22, killed more than 30 people and injured more than 200 others. Two explosions occurred at the check-in area of the city’s Zaventem airport, killing 11 people. About 30 minutes later, an explosion hit the Maelbeek metro (subway) station, killing 20 people. The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the ghastly attacks.
A huge manhunt was on yesterday, and by last evening, police had identified some of the attackers. Two brothers, Khalid and Brahim el-Bakraoui, both Belgian nationals, are thought to have been the bombers in the airport. The men were caught on closed-circuit television footage. Each brother wore a glove on only one hand, causing experts to believe the gloves hid detonating devices for bombs hidden in the suitcases they were seen with. A third man shown with the el-Bakraouis in the footage is thought to have left a bomb at the airport that did not detonate. A taxi driver who saw the airport footage remembered transporting the three men to the airport and gave police the address where he had picked them up. When police raided the address, they found a nail bomb, chemicals, and an Islamic State flag there. In the subway attack, less is known about the bomber, but it is known that a bomb was detonated in the middle car of a three-car long train.
An attack such as this would have required planning, but experts still wondered if it was linked to the arrest of the terrorist Salah Abdesalam in Brussels last Friday (March 18). Abdesalam is a French national who was born in Belgium but is of Moroccan descent. He is one of the few surviving participants from the Paris terrorist attacks of November 2015. He was in Paris at the time of the attacks, but he also helped organize the attacks. Belgian police had been hunting Abdesalam since last November. It has only been 5 days since Abdesalam’s capture, so today’s attack was likely planned before then and unrelated. Some experts wondered, however, if today’s attack had been scheduled for a later date but moved up in response to the arrest.
Zavantem Airport is closed until Friday, March 25. Eurostar, high-speed trains between such major European cities and Paris and London, reopened in Brussels this morning. Some subway stations have reopened, but public transportation in Belgium’s capital was still limited today.
Brussels is the unofficial capital of the European Union (EU), and so a strike at Brussels is, in some ways, a strike at the heart of Europe. In addition, Belgium has a large immigrant population that has not been well-integrated into the fabric of the small nation, so religious extremism has been a problem in certain areas.
Belgium declared three official days of mourning for the Brussels victims and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel stated “To those who have chosen to be barbarous enemies of freedom, democracy and fundamental values … we remain united as one.”
Other World Book articles
- Terror Returns to Paris (November 16, 2015)
- Terror Attack Mastermind Dies in Paris Police Raid (November 19, 2015)
