Brussels attacks: Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam says he 'didn't know' of plans – live

[Surya Gayatri]

Source: The Guardian

* ‘Second suspect’ sought in metro bombing.
* Bakraoui brothers had known links to Paris attacks.
* Attacks killed 31 and wounded 300.
* First victims are named.

Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, 29, detonated one of two devices that exploded at Zaventem airport. His younger brother Khalid el-Bakraoui, 27, was responsible for a third explosion, in a metro carriage at Maelbeek station.

Both men died in the attacks. Ibrahim el-Bakraoui was identified from his fingerprints. Police later found a computer containing a last statement from him, in which he said he felt “in a rush, not knowing what to do, being hunted everywhere, not being safe”, and feared “if this goes on, ending up … in a cell”.

The brothers, both Belgian nationals, had long criminal records, although not for terrorism offences. But police had been searching for them before the Brussels attacks after investigators linked them to the attacks in Paris last November.


Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/mar/24/brussels-attacks-security-emergency-terror-talks-live

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Belgian police and security people are really on the hot seat, as the links between the Paris attacks four months ago, and the Brussels attacks of this week, become more apparent.

How could these guys have been hiding in plain sight for all this time?

[Bad Dog]

1. He may not have known.

Most underground groups, (not just terrorists,) operate a cell structure.

Doesn't mean he's not guilty of a ton of other stuff.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The point is they were in the same cell

From just before the bombs:

The manhunt for terrorism suspect Salah Abdeslam ended with his arrest Friday — and on Monday, police said they've also learned the true identity of one of his alleged accomplices in the deadly Paris attacks in November. That suspect is Laachroui Najim, who used a fake name and is wanted for arrest.

Police say Najim, 24, used the alias Soufiane Kayal to rent a safe house used by the attackers in Belgium — and that he's one of two men who were with Salah Abdeslam in a car that was checked by Hungarian police on Sept. 9, according to the Flanders News website, which adds that police say they found Najim's DNA at a safe house used by the terrorists.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/21/471244359/belgian-police-identify-suspected-accomplice-of-salah-abdeslam

('Laachroui Najim' is more often reported as 'Najim Laachroui')

Najim Laachraoui - Unconfirmed reports in Belgian and French media suggest the man on the left in the CCTV image is the wanted jihadist Najim Laachraoui. Laachraoui was named earlier in the week as an accomplice of Salah Abdeslam, the main suspect in the Paris attacks in November, who was arrested in Brussels last week. A Belgian from the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek, Laachraoui may have been the weapons expert for an IS cell in Belgium.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35869985

The others might have planned it all in the few days from Abdeslam's arrest on Friday, but it seems unlikely (and quite worrying if they could - they left one bomb behind at their apartment because there wasn't room in the taxi for it. If they could make 5 powerful bombs in 4 days, that's an ominous capacity).

[Democat]

2. Why were these violent terrorists released from jail early by Belgium?

Hopefully the people of Belgium will demand answers from their leaders.

[6chars]

4. If he says he didn't know, then he didn't know. Period.