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A 45-year-old man who shot dead two Swedish citizens on Monday night in Brussels and was shot dead by police on Tuesday morning was known to Belgian security services for most of a decade, officials said. Belgians.
In the seven years leading up to his Monday night attacks, which Belgian authorities have labeled “terrorism,” the man had left a trail of criminal activity and extensive signs that he was radicalized, including suspicious and prolific behavior online. . posts on social networks.
His case would finally be addressed by authorities at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday. It was too late.
The Belgian attack was the second in a week in Europe, following the murder of a teacher in France, by extremists well known to authorities who have highlighted the failures of complicated and bureaucratic systems put in place after a wave of terrorism in 2015. and 2016. That system is now under renewed scrutiny as authorities and citizens fear a possible resurgence of radicalism in Europe due to the war in the Middle East.
The cases are also likely to add fuel to renewed debates about immigration in Europe, although, in the case of the Brussels attacker, the man’s story shows that Belgians of immigrant origin and asylum seekers had flagged him as a risk, warning to the authorities. suspicious behavior and troubled past, and it was the authorities who did not act on that intelligence.
An unnamed foreign intelligence service also warned Belgian authorities in July 2016 that a man living in Brussels had become radicalized and was seeking to fight in “a conflict zone,” officials said. No action was taken against him.
“There were countless reports like that at the time, dozens of reports of that nature per day,” Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne told media on Tuesday. “That information was later investigated and nothing more could be done with it.”
Three years later, that same man applied for asylum in Belgium and was quickly rejected, but “disappeared from the radar” before he could be deported, according to Belgian Migration Minister Nicole de Moor, who spoke at the same press conference. than Mr. Quickenborne on Tuesday.
Ms. de Moor said police never brought the man to immigration authorities for deportation. “As a result, the order to leave the territory, issued in March 2021, was not delivered,” she said.
Immigration services seeking to deport him may have lost him, but other parts of the Belgian security apparatus knew where he was and what he was doing, according to Quickenborne’s statements on Tuesday.
While the identity of the suspect was not formally revealed, Belgian media outlets identified him as Abdesalem Lassoued.
In June 2022, he was flagged by a special local task force in Brussels for behaving suspiciously in a mosque. This was a sign that a system established following Belgium’s disastrous handling of intelligence in the run-up to the massive Paris terror attacks in November 2015 was working. Intelligence information was circulating and relevant authorities were informed of possible suspects.
However, nothing happened after that red flag, Quickenborne said Tuesday. “This was reported to the local Brussels task force and did not trigger any further action,” he said.
Still, authorities were presented with one last opportunity to detain and deport him. Earlier this year, a Tunisian asylum seeker went to the police to report that the man had threatened him. The asylum seeker also reported that the man was a convicted terrorist in his country.
In response to this latest warning sign, Belgian authorities convened their “joint information center,” a sort of high-level forum to discuss the man’s activities, evidence of which had been accumulating for seven years.
“He was singled out by the police for questioning and arrest for not having (legal) residence in our country, and due to the possible conviction for terrorism in Tunisia, the Federal Judicial Police of Antwerp decided on Sunday night, October 15, to call a meeting Joint Information Center,” Mr. Quickenborne said.
That meeting was scheduled for Tuesday. It is unclear whether the man knew these procedures were taking place and whether they influenced his decision to launch his attack on Monday night.
On Tuesday morning, police shot him after an overnight chase in Brussels, the Belgian capital. Authorities found him at a coffee shop near his home at 8 a.m. Tuesday after a local resident made a call. He died at a hospital, prosecutors said, adding that a gun and a bag of clothes were found at the scene after the man was shot.
The shooting that occurred on Monday afternoon in central Brussels, before a scheduled soccer match between Sweden and Belgium, was described as terrorism by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. This shocked the Belgian capital, which has a painful history of terrorist attacks. Islamic State militants carried out bomb attacks there in 2016 that killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds more.
“I have just offered my deepest condolences to @SwedishPM following tonight’s heartbreaking attack on Swedish citizens in Brussels,” said Mr de Croo. said in X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday. “Our thoughts are with the families and friends who lost their loved ones. As close partners, the fight against terrorism is joint.”
The victims were wearing Swedish football shirts and may have been preparing to attend the match at a stadium in northern Brussels. The game was suspended after the shooting, but several hours passed before fans were allowed to leave the stadium. A third person, a taxi driver, was also shot, but was out of danger in the hospital.
An unverified video of the attack that circulated on social media showed a man wearing a white helmet and a high-visibility orange jacket chasing and shooting his victims, who ran toward a building, before shooting them again at closer range.
Another unverified video circulating on social media, filmed in selfie mode, showed a man wearing a jacket very similar to the one the gunman was wearing in the other video, speaking in Arabic and describing himself as a supporter of the Islamic State. .
“That’s why there has been a complaint on social media in which someone says that he is the perpetrator, that he sympathizes with ISIS and, what is also important, mentions the Swedish nationality of those victims,” said Eric Van Der Sypt, spokesperson for the group. The federal prosecutor’s office informed the Belgian broadcaster VTM on Monday afternoon.
The man’s Facebook account, now deleted, contained pro-Palestinian comments, as well as a post denouncing the murder of a young Palestinian American in a Chicago suburb this week, which authorities say was a hate crime.
The bloodshed in Israel and Gaza since the Hamas attack on October 7 has raised concerns in many countries that sympathizers of one side or the other may carry out violent acts.
The threat level in Brussels increased after the attack and France has tightened controls on its border with Belgium, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said.
Belgian authorities have also failed to thwart previous terrorist threats. Several of the Islamic State attackers who carried out the November 2015 attacks in Paris that killed more than 100 people were based in Belgium and were known to authorities.
The Belgian capital is home to the main institutions of the European Union and the headquarters of NATO.
The European Commission, which employs thousands of people, urged its employees to work from home on Tuesday and many schools remained closed for the day.
Koba Ryckewaert contributed reporting from Brussels and Liam Stack from New York.