2 Belgian police officers stabbed in suspected terror attack
Belgian police have reported a stabbing attack on two officers as counter-terror investigators begin a probe into the incident, which could spark fresh public fears over terrorism in the country.
Prosecutors said a man wielding a knife stabbed the two police officers in Schaerbeek area in the north of Brussels on Wednesday before being shot in the leg.
Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor's office, said suspicions were high that the attacker had terrorist motives.
“We have elements to believe that the incident was a terrorist attack,” said Van Der Sypt, adding that the suspect was in police custody.
Other police officials said the officers, who were wearing plain clothes, were not seriously injured. They said another police officer was also injured as he tried to stop the attacker, who attempted to escape the scene.
The public broadcaster, VRT, said one officer was stabbed in the neck and another in the stomach. It said the third one had his nose broken by the attacker.
Prosecutors in the capital had earlier said their federal counterparts had intervened to take on the file, an indication that the case was sensitive and related to terrorism. There were no official comments from federal prosecutors on why they were handling the case.
Brussels remain on high alert following attacks in March that killed 32 people. Daesh, a Takfiri terrorist group based in the Middle East, which has many recruits from Belgium in its ranks, claimed the attack, which was carried out in a metro station and at the city’s main airport. The group also claimed a similar stabbing attack on a female police officer in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi two months ago.
Earlier on Wednesday, officials ordered the closure for one hour of Brussels’ Gare du Nord railway station because of a bomb alert. Bomb disposal teams were dispatched to check the area and to allow the services to resume.
Police have carried out a series of extensive raids to hunt down suspected militants across Belgium, especially after terror attacks last November in neighboring France, where 130 people were killed during nocturnal attacks in the capital Paris.
A bomb-making factory for the Brussels bombings and attacks in Paris had been found in one of such raids into Schaerbeek, the Brussels neighborhood which saw the stabbings on Wednesday.
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