Brussels Airport Attackers Identified, Police Identify Suspect Seen In CCTV Footage

UPDATE: 7:48 a.m. EDT — Brussels Airport CEO Arnaud Feist said in a tweet Wednesday that the Zaventem airport will remain closed on Thursday as well, following Tuesday’s attacks in the city that killed over 30 people and left scores injured.

Meanwhile, despite the city struggling to get back to normalcy a day after the attack, Eurostar ran a regular service in the city today. However, the rail service gave its customers the option to cancel or exchange their Wednesday tickets within 60 days.

UPDATE: 7:10 a.m. EDT — Belgian media have retracted reports of the arrest of Najim Laachraoui, Agence France-Presse reported.

DH, which first reported the story, said the man detained in the Anderlecht district had been misidentified. Belgian police officials have declined to comment but will hold a news conference at noon GMT (8:00 a.m. EDT), Reuters reported.

UPDATE: 6:15 a.m. EDT — Najim Laachraoui, the absconding suspect involved in the Brussels attacks Tuesday, has been arrested in the southwest Brussels suburb of Anderlect, Belgian media reported, according to the Guardian. Laachraoui is believed to be the person seen with the two suicide bombers in CCTV footage at the Brussels Airport.

While several local news networks said that the arrested person was Laachraoui, Belgian public broadcaster RTBF could not confirm if it was him that was arrested. The Guardian also cited a Flemish-speaking journalist to say that the arrest was made at a restaurant.

Meanwhile, RTBF clarified that Ibrahim El Bakraoui was the suicide bomber at the airport while Khalid El Bakraoui attacked the metro station at Maelbeek. The identity of second suicide bomber at the airport was not clear.

UPDATE: 3:46 a.m. EDT — A report by a Belgian newspaper was cited by several news reports to say that the third suspect for the Brussels airport attack, for whom a manhunt has been ongoing, has been identified as Najim Laachraoui. The 25-year-old former fighter for the Islamic State group in Syria is also suspected of aiding the Paris terror attacks in November last year.

Laachraoui reportedly grew up in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels and was known to police authorities. Reports said he travelled to Syria in 2013 and followed an important role in a jihad recruitment cell. An international arrest warrant was issued against him in 2014 but he managed to return to Belgium despite that.

Officials investigating the Paris attacks were looking for a suspect named Soufiane Kayal, and on Monday, they announced the name was an alias for Laachraoui. His DNA was found in an apartment in Brussels used by the Paris attackers and he is also suspected to have closely assisted Paris attacks’ prime suspect Salah Abdeslam before and after the attacks in November.

UPDATE: 3:09 a.m. EDT — The suicide bombers who conducted the attacks at the Brussels Airport in Zaventem on Tuesday have been identified as the El Bakraoui brothers. Khalid Bakraoui and his brother Brahim were known to police for organized crimes but were not linked to terrorism activities until now, Belgian public broadcaster RTBF reported.

The two brothers were already being sought by police officials after being suspected of renting out the hideouts for the Paris attackers, RTBF reported.

UPDATE: 2:31 a.m. EDT — The Brussels airport announced Wednesday on its Twitter feed that there will be no flights in or out of the Zaventem airport for the day.

Meanwhile, a local channel in Brussels reported more details about the cab driver’s experience in interacting with the attackers in the Belgian capital Tuesday. The driver’s tip to the police had led them to an apartment in the northern suburb of Schaerbeek from where they seized an explosive device containing nails, chemical products and an ISIS flag.

The report by VTM TV said that the three suspects seen on the CCTV footage had called for a cab for three passengers and five pieces of luggage. When the taxi arrived, the vehicle seemed to be small to accommodate all the pieces of luggage.

“The men were not at all happy with it,” a correspondent for VTM said. She added that after the driver dropped them at the airport, he saw the news of the blast and became suspicious. He then approached the police.

Original story:

Belgian authorities are trying to trace an Islamic State suspect who was seen with two alleged suicide bombers shortly before Tuesday's deadly attack at Brussels airport, reports said Wednesday. The attacks at the airport and the Maelbeek metro station killed more than 30 people and injured over 200. The final death toll, however, remains unclear.

Investigators said that they were searching for a man wearing a hat and a light-colored jacket who was seen pushing a baggage trolley at the airport, on CCTV footage. An unused explosive device was found at the airport and a man was seen running away from the terminal after the blasts, Reuters reported. The two men in dark clothes were seen wearing gloves on their hands, while the man in the hat was not wearing any. Security experts said that it may have helped them hide the detonators, according to Reuters.

Federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw reportedly said at a news conference Tuesday: “A photograph of three male suspects was taken at Zaventem. Two of them seem to have committed suicide attacks. The third, wearing a light-colored jacket and a hat, is actively being sought.” He added that investigators were trying to establish whether there were any links between the Brussels attacks and the arrest of Paris attacks suspect, Salah Abdeslam. The November attacks in the French capital city had claimed the lives of 130 people.

Abdeslam had confessed to being the 10th attacker in Paris but he failed to copy his brother who conducted one of the suicide attacks there. He reportedly said that he spent four months in Brussels without being detected as he was being helped by a network of friends and petty criminals. After questioning him, police officials issued a warrant for Najim Laachraoui, a 25-year-old former fighter in Syria, who is suspected of aiding the Paris attackers.

The Reuters report said that the poor quality of the CCTV footage left open the possibility that Laachraoui could have been the third man at the airport.

“If you recognize this individual or if you have information on this attack, please contact the investigators,” a notice from the Belgian police for the third man, said, according to Reuters.

Van Leeuw also said, according to BBC, that officials were conducting searches in “several parts of the country.” He added that officials found an explosive device containing nails, chemical products and an ISIS flag during a raid of an apartment in Schaerbeek, a northern suburb of Brussels. The raid followed a tip from a cab driver who claimed to have driven the three suspects to the airport.

Francis Vermeiren, the mayor of Zaventem, where the airport is located, told Agence France-Presse that the suicide attackers used bombs hidden in suitcases to conduct the attack. Belgian media also said, according to Reuters, that a Kalashnikov rifle was found next to the body of one of the attackers.

Amaq, a news agency affiliated with ISIS, said Tuesday that its fighters conducted “a series of bombings with explosive belts and devices.” Another statement posted later said: “What is coming is worse and more bitter.”

Several sympathizers and members of the group called the attack a “victory” on social media forums and a “cause for celebration.”