The terror group that struck Brussels on March 22 initially planned to launch a second attack on France, Belgium’s Federal Prosecution Office said yesterday.
However, the perpetrators were “surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation” and decided to rush an attack on Brussels instead, the office said in a statement.
Two suicide bombers killed 16 people at Brussels Airport on March 22, while an explosion at Brussels’ Maelbeek Metro Station killed another 16 people an hour later.
Photo: EPA
Yesterday’s statement provides confirmation of what many have suspected: The series of raids and arrests in the week leading up to the Brussels attacks — including the capture of key Paris attacks fugitive Salah Abdeslam — pushed the killers to action.
The allegation that the killers in Brussels planned a rerun of the Paris attacks comes a day after Belgian authorities charged four men with participating in “terrorist murders” and the “activities of a terrorist group” in relation to the Brussels attacks.
They included Mohamed Abrini, who they said had been identified as the “man in the hat” spotted alongside the two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at Brussels Airport.
Surveillance footage has also placed Abrini in the convoy with the attackers who headed to Paris ahead of the Nov. 13 last year massacre.
The other suspects charged Saturday were identified as Osama Krayem, BM Herve and EM Bilal. Krayem is known to have left the Swedish city of Malmo to fight in Syria.
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