Fox News–
Belgian police were zeroing in on the bomb maker for the Brussels terror cell believed to be behind Tuesday morning’s attacks and the deadly Paris attacks last November, discovering stashes of explosives and rounding up at least one suspect.
Police raided multiple locations in Brussels Tuesday and Wednesday and continued their dragnet for the mystery man who appeared with two suicide bombers in a surveillance photo taken moments before explosions ripped through Zaventem Airport Tuesday, killing at least 11 in the first of twin attacks that shook the Belgian capital.
Police also made an arrest in connection with the terror attacks, which killed at least 31 and injured as many as 270, but later dismissed reports that it was the man seen in the photo with the two bombers. That unidentified man appeared in the photo wearing a possible disguise and walking abreast of two men pushing carts suspected to be loaded with suitcase bombs.
Authorities would not say if the man in the photo is wanted bomb maker Najim Laachraoui, who is suspected of equipping the terrorists who struck in Paris in November and may have played a role in Tuesday’s bombings.
Evidence found in the overnight raids turned up a cache of nails in a Schaerbeek apartment and 15 kilos of acetone peroxide and detonators in the home of one or more suspects. The chemical is the same type as that used in the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris, which killed 130. Nails were found in several victims of the airport attack Tuesday and were likely loaded into the bombs.
The hunt for Laachraoui and the third suspect in the surveillance photo – who could be one and the same – intensified Wednesday as the European capital was once again under lockdown and gripped by fear. Prosecutors said Wednesday that the missing man from the photo is believed to have survived the attack.
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“This third unidentified person has been on the run for awhile now,” Van Leeuw said.
The unnamed suspect was arrested in Brussels’ Anderlecht district, adjacent to the Molenbeek district that has become synonymous with homegrown jihadism in Belgium. Raids were expected to continue throughout Belgium Wednesday, as Laachraoui apparently remained on the loose.
Laachraoui is thought to have built the nail-packed suitcase bombs used by the attackers Tuesday and also fashioned the suicide vests used by the Paris terrorists, according to a police official who told The Associated Press that Laachraoui’s DNA was found on all of the devices and in a Brussels apartment where they were made.
Earlier, two men suspected of taking part in the bombings were identified as Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakraoui.
Khalid is believed to have blown himself up on the Metro, an attack which killed at least 20 and injured more than 100, while Ibrahim is believed to be one of the airport bombers. The fourth bomber, the man in the far left of the airport photo pushing a cart next to Ibrahim, has not yet been identified.
The twin attacks, for which ISIS has claimed credit, shook the European Union capital and are likely to reignite the debate about the wave of Muslim refugees pouring into the continent.
The brothers were well-known to police. In a raid Tuesday at Ibrahim’s address, Van Leeuw said “there was a paper where he described that he is insecure, that he is lost and he does not know what to do and he might end up in jail.”
“I don’t know what to do. I’m looked for everywhere and I might even find myself in a jail cell,” a portion of the letter, read by Van Leeuw, said.
Both Ibrahim and his brother were Belgian citizens and born in Brussels, authorities said.
Belgian media reported that Khalid, 27, rented an apartment in the Forest section of the city that was raided by authorities March 15. During that raid, a police sniper killed a man identified as Mohamed Belkaid, 35, an Algerian with links to ISIS.
The March 15 raid led to Friday’s arrest of Paris attack suspect Salah Abdeslam after one of his fingerprints was discovered in the apartment. Politico Europe, citing a senior Belgian official, reported that Abdeslam was supposed to take part in Tuesday’s attacks. The report did not specify what role Abdeslam would have played.
Over the weekend, Belgium’s Foreign Minister disclosed that Abdeslam had been preparing further attacks, saying the suspect was “ready to restart something from Brussels.”
The Guardian also reported that one of the El-Bakraoui brothers had rented a safe house in Charleroi, Belgium that was used by Paris attackers Abdelhamid Abaaoud and Bilal Hadfi as a rendezvous point prior to the assaults that killed 130 people in the French capital. The paper also reported that one of the brothers had provided weapons and ammunition to the terrorists who attacked the Bataclan concert hall on that deadly night.
DH reported that in October 2010, Ibrahim, 30, was convicted of shooting at police with a Kalashnikov during an attempted robbery. He was sentenced to nine years in prison. In February 2011, the paper reported, Khalid was sentenced to five years’ probation in connection with a string of carjackings.
Van Leeuw said that while both brothers had “heavy rapsheets,” all arrests were seemingly unrelated to terrorism.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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