Islamic State claims attacks at Brussels airport and metro station

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the two bomb attacks that killed at least 30 people and injured more than 230 in the departure hall of Brussels’ Zaventem airport and a metro station in the Belgian capital on Tuesday.The Isis-affiliated news agency AMAQ said its fighters carried out “a series of bombings with explosive belts and devices”. It also said the extremists opened fire at the airport and that “several of them” detonated suicide belts in both attacks.
In the latest terror attack to hit continental Europe, two blasts targeted the main hall of the airport at about 8am, with a third detonating in the Maelbeek metro station, about 100 metres from the headquarters of the European commission, just over an hour later, during the morning rush-hour.
Belgian police appealed for help identifying one of three men captured on CCTV wheeling baggage trolleys through the airport. The state broadcaster, RTBF, said two of the men were suspected suicide bombers, while the third was being sought.

The coordinated bombings came days after Belgian officials warned of possible attacks following the arrest in a Brussels shootout on Friday of Salah Abdeslam, the only known survivor of the 10 Islamist attackers who killed 130 people in a string of suicide bombings and shootings in Paris in November.
Belgium raised its terror alert to its highest level. The airport was evacuated and all flights suspended or diverted until Wednesday morning. Trains to Zaventem, as well as Thalys and Eurostar international rail services to Brussels, were cancelled for most of the day, and the Brussels metro system shut down. Other airports across Europe tightened security.



 What we feared has happened: there were two attacks this morning,” the Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, told a news conference, speaking of a “black day” for Belgium and adding that more might follow. Local media quoted witnesses as saying shots were fired and shouts in Arabic heard shortly before the blasts at the airport, which the health ministry said killed at least 10 people and injured at least 92. Health workers treating the wounded said one of the bombs, which the Belgian state prosecutor confirmed were caused by a suicide attack, may have contained nails. Pictures and video posted on social media showed smoke rising from the terminal building through shattered windows, devastation inside the departure hall with ceiling tiles and glass scattered across the floor, and passengers running along a slipway, dragging their bags behind them. Local media said the explosions occurred in the check-in area, close to the counters of Brussels Airlines, American Airlines and handling agency Swissport, and near a Starbucks cafe. The state broadcaster, RTBF, reported a third, unexploded device and two Kalashnikov assault rifles were later found at the scene and controlled explosions carried out by security forces.