Belgian media say explosions at Brussels airport, several injured

BRUSSELS - Explosions tore through the departure hall of Brussels airport on Tuesday morning killing up to 10 people and injuring 30 others and a second blast struck a metro station in the capital shortly afterwards, the Belgian public broadcaster RTBF said.

The Belga agency said shots were fired and there were shouts in Arabic shortly before the blasts at the airport. Pictures on social media showed smoke rising from the terminal building through shattered windows and passengers running away down a slipway, some still hauling their bags.

The blasts at the airport and metro station occurred four days after the arrest in Brussels of a suspected participant in November militant attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. Belgian police had been on alert for any reprisal action.

British Sky News television's Alex Rossi, at the airport, said he heard two "very, very loud explosions".

"I could feel the building move. There was also dust and smoke as well...I went towards where the explosion came from and there were people coming out looking very dazed and shocked."

"The thinking here is that it is some kind of terrorist attack - that hasn't been verified by any of the authorities here at the airport."

Video showed devastation inside the departure hall with ceiling tiles and glass scattered across the floor.

RTBF said the metro station hit by the explosion was close to European Union institutions. Authorities closed all metro stations in Brussels, but there were no details immediately available of any casualties in this second incident of the day.

Fermeture du métro #STIB
Sluiting van alle metrostations #MIVB
All metro stations are closing #Brussels @zpz_polbru

— STIB-MIVB (@STIBMIVB) March 22, 2016

A local journalist tweeted a photograph of a person lying covered in blood among smoke outside Maelbeek metro station, on the main Rue de la Loi avenue which connects central Brussels with the EU institutions.

FLIGHTS CANCELLED, PASSENGERS EVACUATED

Don't come to the airport - airport is being evacuated. Avoid the airport area. Flights have been cancelled.

— Brussels Airport (@BrusselsAirport) March 22, 2016

The agency cited hospital sources as saying up to ten people wre killed at the airport.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said on his twitter feed: "We are following the situation minute by minute. Our priority concern is for the victims and those present in the airport."

Brussels airport said it had cancelled all flights and the complex had been evacuated and trains to the airport had been stopped. Passengers were taken to coaches from the terminal that would remove them to a secure area.

Police did not give any confirmation of the cause of the blast. But there has been a high state of alert across western Europe for fear of militant attacks backed by Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the Paris attack.

European stocks fell after the explosions, particularly travel sector stocks including airlines and hotels, pulling the broader indices down from multi-week highs. Safe-haven assets, gold and government bonds rose in price.

French citizen Salah Abdeslam, the prime surviving suspect for November's Paris attacks on a stadium, cafes and a concert hall, was captured by Belgian police after a shootout on Friday.

Belgium's Interior Minister, Jan Jambon, said on Monday the country was on high alert for a revenge attack.

"We know that stopping one cell can ... push others into action. We are aware of it in this case," he told public radio.

French investigator Francois Molins told a news conference in Paris on Saturday that Abdeslam, a French citizen born and raised in Brussels, admitted to investigators he had wanted to blow himself up along with others at the Stade de France on the night of the attack claimed by Islamic State; but he later backed out.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Suspected explosive belt found south of Paris

PARIS - An object believed to be an explosive belt was found on Monday in a town south of Paris, near where a phone used by suspected assailant Salah Abdeslam was detected on the night of the attacks, a source close to the investigation said.

Abdeslam, whose brother blew himself up in the Paris attacks, has been on the run since the assault that killed 130 people in the French capital on Nov. 13 and is the focus of a massive manhunt.

French investigators initially believed Abdeslam had been in a black Seat Leon car that was used in the shootings at restaurants and cafes in the 10th and 11th districts of the capital.

A source close to the investigation said, however, that Abdeslam's mobile phone was detected after the attacks in the northern 18th district of Paris, near an abandoned Renault Clio car that Abdeslam had rented.

The source said there was now a "strong suspicion" he had been driving the Clio rather than being in the Seat.

Furthermore, when Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, it said it had targeted the Stade de France soccer stadium, the Bataclan concert hall, the 10th and 11th districts - as well as the 18th district.

Since there were no explosions or shootings in the 18th, investigators are now wondering whether there was a failed, or aborted, attack, the source said.

Abdeslam's phone was detected later on Nov. 13 by a mobile phone mast in Chatillon in the south of Paris, near Montrouge where the suspected explosive belt was dumped.

But the source said it was too soon to say whether the object had been in contact with Abdeslam.

"The thesis that he abandoned (the attack) is just coming from people who brought him back (to Belgium). But we don't know why. Maybe he had a technical problem with his explosive belt, for example," said a police source.

(Reporting by Chine Labbé and Gerard Bon; writing by David Clarke; editing by Giles Elgood)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Brussels stays at top security alert over fears of Paris-style attack

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Brussels will remain at the highest possible alert level Monday, with schools, universities and metros closed over a "serious and imminent" threat of attacks similar to those that struck Paris, the Belgian prime minister said.

Belgian police said several operations were under way late Sunday as security forces continued to hunt for Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in last week's atrocities in the French capital.

Armed officers and troops have been patrolling the near deserted streets of the tense Belgian capital all weekend after the government raised the terror alert to the highest level of four in the city of more than a million that is also home to the NATO and European Union headquarters.

Premier Charles Michel said the metro system would remain shut and schools and universities would be closed over concerns that jihadists were planning a repeat of the Paris gun and suicide bombing attacks that claimed 130 lives on November 13.

"What we fear are similar attacks, with several individuals in several places," he told reporters.

"The threat is considered serious and imminent," he said, adding that the rest of the country would remain on security alert level three, meaning an attack is considered possible and the threat credible.

Officials will review the situation again on Monday.

The historic Grand Place in central Brussels, usually bustling, was virtually empty at the weekend, with business badly hit in the run-up to Christmas as anxious residents heeded warnings to stay home.

With a massive manhunt on for several suspects linked to the carnage in Paris, Belgian police urged the media not to show live footage of the police operations taking place Sunday evening.

The public prosecutor will hold a news conference "when it is all over", a spokesman told AFP.

Interior Minister Jan Jambon earlier said the authorities were looking for "several suspects" and not just for Abdeslam, who is thought to have slipped past French security forces after taking part in the Paris attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

French police meanwhile released a photo of the third of three men who blew themselves up outside France's national stadium during the rampage, which also targeted the Bataclan concert hall as well as a string of bars and restaurants.

The man in the picture passed through Greece with one of the other suicide bombers, carrying a Syrian passport in the name of Mohammad al-Mahmod, a source close to the investigation said.

- Obama: 'We're not afraid' -With the world on edge over the jihadist threat, US President Barack Obama said the most powerful tool in the fight against IS was to say "that we're not afraid".

He added that he would go ahead with a December visit to Paris for UN climate talks and called on other countries to show similar resolve.

French President Francois Hollande will embark on a diplomatic offensive in the coming days in a bid to forge a broad anti-IS coalition.

He will host Britain's David Cameron Monday before meeting Obama in Washington on Tuesday, holding talks with Germany's Angela Merkel in Paris Wednesday and Russia's Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday.

The UN Security Council on Friday authorised "all necessary measures" to fight jihadist violence after a wave of deadly attacks, including the downing of a Russian aircraft in Egypt with the loss of 224 lives and the storming of a luxury hotel in Mali that left 19 dead.

- Hollande 'shocked but focused' -German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was at the stadium along with Hollande attending a France-Germany football friendly when the bombers blew themselves up outside, told the daily Bild he had thought the first blast was fireworks, but soon realised it was a terror attack.

Hollande "was shocked, but at the same time very focused and determined," he added.

The French leader was evacuated, but Steinmeier and his team were asked to stay in the hope of avoiding panic among the some 80,000 fans, he said.

Meanwhile, Eagles of Death Metal, the Californian band that was playing at the Bataclan where 89 people were massacred, spoke for the first time since the attacks, with singer Jesse Hughes saying that many fans died tyring to protect their friends.

"So many people put themselves in front of people," he said in an excerpt of an interview with Vice.com.

- The Belgian connection -The suspected ringleader of the November 13 attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, died in a massive police raid in Paris on Wednesday.

He was a notorious Belgian jihadist thought to be fighting in Syria, and his presence in Europe has raised troubling questions about a Europe-wide breakdown in intelligence and border security.

Questions remain too over the role played by Belgian-born Abdeslam -- who used to run a bar with his brother Brahim in Brussels.

Brahim blew himself up outside a Paris bar on November 13.

A third brother, Mohamed Abdeslam, told Belgian TV he believed Salah had at the last moment decided not go through with the attack.

He said the family wanted him to give himself up.

"That way he can give us the answers we seek, our family and the families of the victims," he said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com