|
 With pressure mounting on Europe to improve cooperation against
terrorism, EU interior and justice ministers were to hold emergency
talks on a joint response to Tuesday's bombings in Brussels, which
killed at least 31 people and injured 270.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls led calls for a "strong European
response", but officials say many states, including France, withhold
their most cherished data despite a mantra of willingness to share
intelligence.
The chief surviving suspect linking the Paris and Brussels attacks,
Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, 26, arrested in the Belgian capital last
week, appeared briefly in court on Thursday with two other suspects
and was remanded in custody until April 7.
His lawyer, Sven Mary, who requested the adjournment, said Abdeslam
was no longer opposed to being extradited to France.
"Salah Abdeslam has asked me to inform you that he wishes to leave
for France as quickly as possible," Mary told reporters at the
courthouse, saying his client "wants to explain himself".
 Turkey's president criticized Belgium for failing to track Brahim El
Bakraoui, a convicted armed robber whom it expelled last year and
who blew himself up at the airport on Tuesday an hour before his
brother Khalid, a fellow convict, killed about 20 people at Maelbeek
metro station in the city center.
Security sources told Belgian media the other suicide bomber at the
airport was Najim Laachraoui, a veteran Belgian Islamist fighter in
Syria suspected of making explosive belts for November's Paris
attacks, who also detonated a suitcase bomb at the airport.
The third suspect captured on airport security cameras pushing a
baggage trolley into the departures hall alongside Laachraoui and
Brahim El Bakraoui is now the target of a police manhunt. He has not
been named.
The bespectacled man wearing a cream jacket and a black hat ran out
of the terminal, federal prosecutors said, and a third suitcase
bomb, the biggest of the three, exploded later as bomb disposal
experts were clearing the area.
Public broadcaster RTBF said investigators now believed a second
bomber was involved in the metro attack close to European Commission
headquarters. The man was spotted on security cameras carrying a
heavy bag, but his identity was unknown and it was not clear if he
had died or escaped.
A computer-generated image showed a young man with hollow cheeks, a
tiny goatee beard and thick black eyebrows.
U.S. CRITICISM
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the bloodshed in the capital
of the European Union, not far from NATO headquarters, showed
Washington's European allies should do more to fight Islamic State
alongside American efforts in the Middle East.
"The Brussels event is going to further signify to Europeans that,
as we have been accelerating our campaign to defeat ISIL in Syria
and Iraq and elsewhere, they need to accelerate their efforts and
join us," Carter told CNN, using another acronym for Islamic State.
 Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticized
the lack of cooperation among European countries, saying the EU
lacked a system for exchanging air passenger data or a joint
intelligence center to share information.
Opinion polls suggest support in Britain for leaving the European
Union in a referendum set for June 23 is gaining ground since the
Brussels attacks, which fanned security fears that some politicians
have linked to immigration.
U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who has
suggested torture could be used on militant suspects, said he
expected Britain would vote to leave the EU because of concerns
about high levels of migration.
[to top of second column] |
Casualties came from about 40 nations, drawing an international
outpouring of support for Brussels during three days of mourning.
Washington said Secretary of State John Kerry would visit Belgium on
Friday.
The Belgian government deflected criticism from Turkey's President
Tayyip Erdogan, saying the elder Bakraoui brother, 29, had not been
deported to Belgium but to the Netherlands.
Officials have said that, as in the case of one of the Paris suicide
bombers, they cannot detain militant suspects expelled from Turkey
without evidence that they have committed a crime.
Brahim El Bakraoui was detained near the Syrian border and expelled
last July. "Belgium ignored our warning that this person is a
foreign fighter," Erdogan said.
Flemish public broadcaster VRT said the bomber had been released
from a Belgian prison in 2014 after serving four years of a 10-year
sentence for armed robbery. He skipped two probation meetings last
June and was ordered to return to prison in August. But police could
not find him.
The case highlighted Belgium's problem with some 300 locals who have
fought in Syria, the biggest contingent from Europe in relation to
its national population of 11 million.
At the time of the Paris attacks, in which 130 people were killed by
Brussels-based militants, its security service had fewer than 600
staff. The government has since raised spending on police and
intelligence.
Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, leading efforts to counter
international criticism of Belgian policies toward containing
violent extremists among its Muslim community, which makes up about
5 percent of the population, said security had to be balanced with
civil rights.
As Brussels struggled to return to normal, its airport remained shut
until at least Saturday, with the departure hall sealed off by
investigators.
Travelers on the busy Easter weekend were diverted to Antwerp, Liege
and the northern French city of Lille.
Brussels Airlines advised passengers to arrive up to three hours
before their flight because of security measures. There were long
lines outside the terminal in Liege as people waited in the rain to
put their baggage through new outdoor scanners, VRT reported.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker jumped to
Belgium's defense, dismissing charges it was a "failed state".
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," Juncker told
Flemish daily De Standaard. "There was terrorism in Britain and in
Germany in the 1970s and 1980. There was terrorism in Spain, in
Italy and much more recently in France. People should stop lecturing
Belgium."
(Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, Julia Fioretti, Barbara
Lewis, Bate Felix, Jan Strupczewski, Robin Emmott and Jean-Baptiste
Vey in Brussels; Writing by Paul Taylor and Alastair Macdonald;
Editing by Janet Lawrence)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
