Police link Brussels suicide brothers to Paris massacre

Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui were Belgian nationals with criminal backgrounds; suspected IS jihadist Najim Laachraoui is another possible participant

he two brothers who blew themselves up in the deadly train and airport attacks in Brussels were known by police for serious crimes and are linked to November’s Paris massacre.

Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui are Belgian nationals with major convictions “not linked to terrorism”, federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said at a dramatic news briefing on Wednesday. Khalid (27), who blew himself up on Tuesday at the Maalbeek metro station, is a convicted car-jacker. His brother Ibrahim (30), who was one of two suicide bombers at the airport, had been handed a nine-year sentence for firing his gun at police, local media say.
The pair entered the public eye on March 15 when police raided an apartment in the Forest district of Brussels, as part of the investigation into the Paris attacks.

Belgian media reports said a joint squad of Belgian and French police approached the property because it was rented under a false name used by Khalid to secure a hide-out months earlier for the Paris attackers. Khalid is suspected of having rented other properties used to prepare the November tragedy in Paris, including one in the city of Charleroi from where ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud set off to lead the assault in the French capital. The brothers are not believed to have been present in those events, but their connection to Islamic State jihadism was established.

Another possible participant in the Brussels attack is suspected IS jihadist Najim Laachraoui, that reports said could be the man dressed in a light jacket seen in CCTV images at the airport. Moroccan-born Laachraoui is suspected of being the bomb-maker for the Paris attacks that killed 130 people.

Traces of Laachraoui’s DNA were found on explosives used in the Paris bomb and gun assaults, including at the Bataclan rock venue where 80 people died.

Turkey deported attacker

Turkish authorities in June 2015 detained and later deported one of the Brussels attackers, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday as a media report named him as Ibrahim El Bakraoui. “One of the Brussels attackers was detained in Gaziantep and then deported”, Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Ankara.

Mr. Erdogan did not identify the individual but NTV television named him as Ibrahim El Bakraoui. Mr. Erdogan said Belgian authorities had failed to confirm the suspect’s links to terrorism “despite our warnings” following his deportation.


 — AFP