Brussels bombers ‘initially planned to target France’

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Brussels bombers ‘initially planned to target France’
By Catherine Hardy | With REUTERS



"The terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again"

BRUSSELS: -- The bombers who attacked Belgium last month had initially been planning to target France.

Belgian prosecutors say the surviving suspect from the Brussels bombings has told them the group wanted to attack France for the second time in four months.

They say Mohammed Abrini, who was arrested last Friday, says the arrest of suspect Salah Abdeslam four days before prompted them to act.

They opted to strike closer to home as key members of the group began to be arrested.

The attackers decided to hit targets nearby when investigators began to close in on them.

Abdeslam, suspected of being involved in the Paris attacks, was arrested the Friday before the Brussels bombings.

“Surprised by the speed of progress in the investigation, they took the decision to strike in Brussels,” the prosecutor said in a statement.

Officials say Abrini has admitted being the man in the hat seen on CCTV at Brussels airport and in the city after the bombings on March 22.

He and three other men were charged with terrorist offences on Saturday.

The Belgian connection

Investigations into the November 13 attacks in Paris showed many of the attackers lived in Belgium.

Key suspects Salah Abdeslam and Mohammed Abrini remained in Brussels for four months after the shootings and bombings, which killed 130 people and injured scores more.

A further 32 died and many more were injured in the airport and metro attacks in Brussels on March 22.

What they are saying

“Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again.” – statement from the Belgian federal prosecutor.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-04-11

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Officials: Group that hit Brussels planned 2nd France attack
By RAPHAEL SATTER and RAF CASERT

BRUSSELS (AP) — The extremists who struck Brussels last month and killed 32 people initially planned to launch a second assault on France in the wake of the November attacks in Paris, authorities said Sunday.

But the perpetrators were "surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation" and decided to rush an attack on Brussels instead of going back to France, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office said in a statement. It didn't provide any details on the initial French plot or its targets.

Both France and Belgium warned it was no time to relax despite the recent spate of arrests.

"It's fresh proof of the very real threat that weighs on all of Europe, and on France in particular," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said.

Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said it amounted to "a dirty war" when more attacks could be expected in Belgium, France or beyond.

"Once the intention is there, the place of execution is rather secondary," Geens told VRT network. "If we secure one place, another target opens up."

Two suicide bombers killed 16 people at Brussels Airport on March 22. A subsequent explosion at Brussels' Maelbeek subway station killed another 16 people the same morning. Investigators have found links between the cell behind those attacks and the group that killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13.

Sunday's statement provides confirmation of what many had suspected: the series of raids and arrests in the week leading up to the Brussels attacks — including the capture of key Paris attacks fugitive Salah Abdeslam — pushed the killers to action.

A laptop seized from a garbage can on a street outside the suicide bombers last known address contained a message purportedly from Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up in the airport attack, that indicated he was expecting to be arrested imminently following the arrest of Abdeslam.

In it, prosecutors said El Bakraoui wrote that he felt "in a hurry," and "no longer knowing what to do," and "being hunted from everywhere" — all indications they might have looked for a speedier attack than initially planned.

Belgian police detained four men in Brussels raids over the weekend who were charged with participating in "terrorist murders" and the "activities of a terrorist group" in relation to the Brussels attacks. One of them, Mohamed Abrini, has also been charged in relation to the Paris attacks, prosecutors said.

Abrini has acknowledged being the "man in the hat" spotted alongside the two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at Brussels Airport, officials said. Surveillance footage has also placed him in the convoy with the attackers who headed to Paris ahead of the Nov. 13 massacre.

Abrini was a childhood friend of Brussels brothers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam, both suspects in the Paris attacks, and he had ties to Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the Paris attackers' ringleader who died in a French police raid shortly afterward. Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up in the Paris bombings while Salah Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels on March 18 — four days before the attacks there — after a four-month manhunt.

Geens insisted people should not get their hopes up too much.

"We can hope that the cell around Abdeslam and Abbaoud is just about caught but we should not believe it. In any case we need to remain very alert and new cells can pop up at any moment. The facts have already taught us that," Geens said.

"It is a dirty war which is unpleasant for France, for Belgium, or for the other nations in western Europe, because no one is immune," Geens said. Valls said the news was one more reason to remain attentive to the threat of extremism in France.

"We won't relax our vigilance," he told reporters in Algiers, where he is on an official visit.

The other suspects charged over the weekend were identified as Osama Krayem, who left the Swedish city of Malmo to fight in Syria and was described by one relative as having been "brainwashed." Also charged were Herve B. M., a Rwandan national, and Bilal E. M.

The past couple of days' developments represent a rare success for Belgian authorities, who have been repeatedly criticized for bungling the bombings investigation. Despite the progress, Brussels remains under the second-highest terror alert, meaning an attack is still considered likely.

In a separate development, Brussels' STIB transport network announced that 12 stations closed since the attacks would reopen on Monday. Eighteen of the capital's 69 stations will remain closed until further notice, including Maelbeek.
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Raphael Satter reported from Paris. Jan M. Olsen in Malmo, Sweden, contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2016-04-11

[razer]

Very old story.

http://security-intelligence.org/2016/03/5032/

[bark]

When they take these Terrorist alive. They should torture them until they get all information they can. Then they should hang them at the city

Hall, of the attacked city for all their brothers to see. And anyone who helped them, or knew of their plans, should suffer the same fate.