Belgian police arrests Brussels airport bomber
This undated handout photo released on March 21, 2016 by the federal police on demand of Brussels’ king prosecutor shows a combination of two pictures of Najim Laachraoui, 25 years old. Police was looking for Laachraoui as part of the investigation into the Paris terrorist attacks. Laachraoui, born on 18 May 1991, is using the alias Soufiane Kayal. Police have found his DNA on explosives used in last year’s Paris attacks, a French source revealed. / AFP / BELGIAN FEDERAL POLICE / HO
A man suspected to be the bomber of Zaventem Airport in Brussels, Belgium has been arrested, Belgian media say on Wednesday.
The suspect whose name was given as Najim Laachraoui, was reportedly arrested at a pizza restaurant in Anderlecht
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.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the terror attacks, noting that its operatives had carried out “a series of bombings with explosive belts and devices”.
La Derniere Heure newspaper and broadcaster RTL said Laachraoui had been arrested in the Anderlecht district of Brussels, adding that he was the third man pictured in airport CCTV footage alongside two suicide bombers who blew themselves up on Tuesday.
Officials did not confirm the report but Belgium’s federal prosecutor was due to give a press conference at 1200 GMT.
Belgian media earlier said that brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been identified as two of the bombers who struck the airport and the Maalbeek metro station in Tuesday’s Brussels attacks.
Belgian investigators named Laachraoui on Monday following the arrest of Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam.
They said that under the alias Soufiane Kayal he travelled to Hungary in September with Abdeslam, who is the last known survivor of the 10 Paris attackers.
Laachraoui is also believed to have travelled to Syria in February 2013.
Traces of DNA from the 24-year-old were found on the explosives used in the gun and suicide attacks in Paris, a source close to the French investigation said earlier this week.
Belgian prosecutors on Monday said Laachraoui’s DNA had been found at an apartment in the Schaarbeek district of Brussels where bomb making equipment and one of Abdeslam’s fingerprints had been found in December.
His DNA was also found at an apartment used by the Paris attackers in Auvelais, near the central Belgian city of Namur, which he had rented under a false name.
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14 Comments
This is an ample illustration of how technology helps to fight crime. It’s not just about weapons, it’s also about intelligence. I hope the Nigerian government learns from this as they strive to tackle the deadly Boko Horam group.
In case you don’t know, a calling App called Ringoversea is now so cheap to call Nigeria and other African Countries. Hope this helps?
RIP to those killed by these evil islmc pigs..Europe has,infested itself wit ISIL,Alqueada, Alshabab mslm devlish pigs…Very unfortunate. ..
Woes to islm and he ll fire for d evil prophet Mhmmed. ..Son of d devil (Islmc Allah)…
May Allah(SAW) guide you to know right path.
You’ve been brainwashed to think islam is Evil.
Please you are really interested in knowing the truth, seek for knowledge yourself rather than listening or reading from articles from the enemies of Humanity.
Please go and seek for the right knowledge from the Qur’an
Jesus Christ forbids your islmc Allah,d devil itself ,to come near me..Wht good has islm brought to humanity except sorrow, tears, and, blood…?
Killing pple u all run to their continent in droves as fake refugees..Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, rich Kuwait rejected their own fellow lots…Evil pple..May pedophile Mhmmd rot in he ll fire…
You are unwittingly a Daesh recruiter – they want you to do exactly what you have just done here. Read my post above on how to escape that trap
Read my views again n again…
AT AIRPORTS ALL BAGGAGE MUST BE SECURITY CHECKED JUST AT THE ENTRY OF THE AIRPORT IN A BOMB PROOF ENCLOSURE. THIS HAS TO BE DONE IMMEDIATELY TO PREVENT SIMILAR MURDERS AT THE AIRPORTS IN THE WORLD.
With d bribes dat d airport securities in Nigeria are openly demanding 4rm passengers makes all Nigerian international airports vulnerable to suicide attacks at any time. D Nigerian custom , immigration , dss, police & d aviation security all are openly demanding & collecting bribes. Any suicide bomber can load his luggage with bombs & bribe his or her ways through any Nigerian airports.
Steps needs to be urgently taken to curb d ways d security agents are soliciting 4 bribes at Nigerian airports.
Why Nigeria? Leave them out of this,they are still in another century.
Thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the Belgian people at this time. Those who did this are criminals – Here is how you can minimize and localize their victims and defeat their violent propaganda, and NOT fall into the trap of being their recruiter (unknowingly), according to Juan Cole:
1. Stop calling Daesh “the Islamic State.” They are manipulating you. They aren’t a state and they aren’t
Islamic. If some fringe cult took over some villages in Mexico and called itself “The Vatican,” then committed terrorism, would journalistsblithely say on air “Today, the Vatican killed 39 and injured 200 with abomb belt”? People in the Middle East hate this small desert fringe, and they term it “Daesh,” not “Islamic.” They should know.
2. Callthe terrorists “Muslim” if you have to characterize them, not “Islamic”or even worse, “Islamics.” There is no such thing as “Islamic” terrorism. The word “Islamic” has to do with the ideals and verities of the religion of Islam, and is analogous to “Judaic.” There are Muslim criminals and Muslim terrorists, just as there are Jewish criminals and Jewish terrorists. But there are no Judaic terrorists, and there aren’t any Islamic ones either. But it is all right just to call them terrorists or cultists.
3. Stop suggesting that there is something wrong with Muslims that they keep producing terrorists. All the major
world faiths produce violent people. In the Rwanda genocide of the 1990s, Christian Hutus murdered between 500,000 and 1 million other people, and the Christian churches were deeply involved in enabling this slaughter. Indeed, Christian missionaries had played a sinister role inimporting the idea of racial divides and racial hierarchies into Rwanda
in the first place. That the American mass media have virtually ignoredsanguinary episodes such as the Rwanda killings and the central role of the Christian churches in them in itself helps create an image of Muslims as unusually violent. If you only report on Muslim violence, then that is what people will think.
4. Call terrorism ‘terrorism’ no matter who commits it. When Basques blew up a gas station in Madrid, the US press did not report it, much less terming it ‘terrorism.’ In terms of sheer numbers of attacks, terrorism more often looks like that in Europe than it looks like Brussels on Tuesday.
5. Muslims are a sixth of humankind and hail from all sorts of backgrounds, ethnicities, and languages. There are 40 million Chinese Muslims. There are 23 million Russian ones. Ethiopian Muslims and Senegalese Muslims have little in common despite being African, and neither has much in common with Bangladeshi Muslims. To tag all of them with the actions of some violent Brussels slum-dwellers of North African heritage is weird. It is exactly like assuming that all American Christians want to kill Tutsis,just because Hutu Christians did.
6. Show some basic humanity and sympathize with Muslim victims of terrorism (and they are the main
victims nowadays). It is right that we show solidarity with the Brusselsvictims and that we say “we are Brussels.” But why aren’t we “Istanbul”or “Beirut” or “Baghdad” when those cities are blown up by Daesh?
7.Recognize that most Muslims actively despise Daesh and similar violent cults. There are only like 30,000 Daesh fighters, and that’s in an area with lots of armed groups. They don’t like Daesh and won’t join it. Half of the population routinely flees if Daesh takes over. (There is a little propaganda trick Islamophobes play with these statistics, saying that even if 2% of 1.6 billion Muslims actively supported Daesh, that would be a lot of people. But this trick is easily refuted by reality.
Almost no one has gone to fight for Daesh, in statistical terms. If 600 Britons went to Syria out of 3.6 million British Muslims, that would be .016% support. Moreover, people who tell pollsters they think well of Daesh mostly have no idea what it is– they are just falling for point #1above, hearing that it is “Islamic” and so it might have a positive connotation for them until they actually meet it.
8. Show your Muslim neighbor (or even more likely in the US, physician) some love. Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) does these horrible things to get people of Christian heritage to be beastly to the Muslims in their midst, spreading hatred and anger and a sense of victimization. Daesh is hoping to use *you* to drive other Muslims into their arms. They want to make you a recruitment officer. They want you to hate and they want you to fear. There is only one way to combat this tactic of sharpening contradictions. Refuse to hate and refuse to be afraid. Bend over backwards to be nice to Muslims.
They’re human beings, just like you, but they are being stalked by very dangerous people. Not all those dangerous people are even of Muslim heritage. Some 40% of Daesh suspects arrested in the US have been converts from other religions. And some of the dangerous people are US presidential candidates like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
@chizi just exactly what I wanted to say. Nigeria must upgrade to the level of doing things sincerely and not spending billions of dollars on invisible ammunitions, perhaps Belgians in addition to the cctv footage gave vital info in assisting the security agents to unravel the actual killers but what we have here is the opposite. if and when u expose a secret like such, u are better good as dead.
THERE IS DEFINITELY A DEFINE INTERVENTION FOR ALL THESE INTERMITTENT KILLINGS THE WORLD OVER! KILLINGS OF INNOCENT CITIZENS SHOULD BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED BY THE WORLD LEADERS AND IMMEDIATE ACTION TAKEN TO ARREST THE SITUATION. ALL RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS SHOULD MAP OUT STRATEGIES THAT WILL BE RESPECTED BY ALL NATIONS SO AS TO ERADICATE TERRORISM. THE WORLD MUST REMAIN TOTALLY FREE OF TERRORISTS’ INFLUENCE AND BLOOD BIRTH. LET US ALL BE ON OUR KNEES SO AS TO PUT AN END TO TERRORISM THE WORLD OVER!
Please your news is not real, TWO DEAD , ONE AT LARGE, they are still searching for the guy , he drop off the suitcase , but disappear , I hope I have clarify your news, CNN would not lied , they have well updated News so far
We will review and take appropriate action.