Brussels attack: man shot during hunt for suspect in killing of Swedish football fans
Belgian police have shot a man while conducting a search for the suspect in the killing of two Swedish football fans on Monday night.
The interior minister, Annelies Verlinden, told the broadcaster VRT that an automatic weapon found on the “neutralised person” was the same as that used during the attack. VRT reported that “he may have died on the way to hospital”.
Belgian prosecutors are working to establish whether the man shot in the Brussels neighbourhood of Schaerbeek on Tuesday is the suspect.
Police opened fire during the arrest, Eric Van Duyse, a spokesperson for the Belgian prosecutors’ service, said. Earlier on Tuesday morning, a search took place in a house near the scene of the attack but the perpetrator was not found.
The suspect, a 45-year-old Tunisian, calling himself Abdesalem Al Guilani, claimed in a video on social media that he was a fighter for Allah.
The attack has shaken the Belgian capital, where the security threat level was raised from 2 to 4, the highest level possible, and residents were asked to be vigilant and not travel unnecessarily while the man was still at large.
The prime minister, Alexander De Croo, called it a brutal terrorist attack, while the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Europe had been victim to another Islamist attack.
On Monday night, the prosecutor’s office said it suspected that the link to Sweden may have been the motive and there was no evidence it was related to the conflict in Israel and Gaza.
“Last night, three people left for what was supposed to be a wonderful soccer party. Two of them lost their lives in a brutal terrorist attack,” De Croo told a news conference.
“The perpetrator targeted specifically Swedish supporters who were in Brussels to attend a Red Devils soccer match. Two Swedish compatriots passed away. A third person is recovering from severe injures,.
“My most sincere condolences to the loved ones of the victims of the cowardly attack in Brussels,” he added.
Belgium was hosting Sweden in a Euro 2024 qualifying match on Monday evening. The match was abandoned at halftime and crowds evacuated shortly before midnight.
A man who identified himself as a member of the Islamic State claimed responsibility in a video posted online.
The Belgian justice minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, told a news conference in the early hours of Tuesday that the suspect was a 45-year-old Tunisian man who sought asylum in Belgium in November 2019 and was known to police in connection with people smuggling and illegal residence in Belgium.
The shooting comes at a time of heightened security concerns in some European countries linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict. France is deploying 7,000 extra troops onto its streets after a teacher was fatally stabbed on Friday in an attack Macron condemned as “barbaric Islamic terrorism”.
Video footage of the Brussels attack showed a man in an orange jacket on a scooter at a street intersection with a rifle first firing five shots, then following people fleeing into a building before firing again.