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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Abortive Brussels attack could have been much worse: PM

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BRUSSELS: A suitcase bomb packed with nails and gas bottles could have caused heavy casualties, Belgium’s prime minister said on Wednesday, a day after a soldier shot dead a Moroccan national attempting an attack on Brussels’ Central Station.


“We have avoided an attack that could have been a great deal worse,” Charles Michel told reporters on Wednesday following Tuesday evening’s incident, in which no one else was hurt. No further threat was imminent and the alert level was unchanged.


A security source named the dead man, identified officially only by the initials OZ, as Oussama Zariouh. A counter-terrorism prosecutor said he was a 36-year-old Moroccan citizen who lived in the Brussels borough of Molenbeek and had not been suspected of militant links. He set off his bomb on a crowded station concourse below ground at 8:44 pm.


Walking up to some passengers, “he grabbed his suitcase, while shouting and causing a partial explosion. Fortunately, nobody was hurt,” prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said.


The suitcase, later found to contain nails and gas bottles, caught fire and then exploded a second time more violently as the man ran downstairs to the platforms.


He then ran back up to the concourse where commuters had been milling around and rushed toward a soldier shouting in Arabic. The soldier, part of a routine patrol, shot him several times. Bomb disposal experts checked the body and found he was not carrying more explosives.


Police raided the man’s home overnight, Van Der Sypt said. Broadcaster VTM said they had found bomb-making materials.


Molenbeek mayor Francoise Schepmans told reporters Zariouh, was on police files over a drugs case last year and was divorced.


— Reuters


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