Machete attacker in Belgium identified; Islamic State claims responsibility
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Police secure the scene, at the police headquarters in Charleroi, Belgium on Saturday. Two female officers were attacked and wounded by a man wielding a machete and shouting “Allahu Akhbar” outside a police station in the Belgian city of Charleroi on Saturday, police said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Police erect a barrier in front of the Belgian Prime Minister’s office, prior to a media conference in Brussels on Sunday. A man attacked two police officers with a machete near the police headquarters in Charleroi, Belgium on Saturday before being apprehended.
BRUSSELS » A man who attacked two police officers in the Belgian city of Charleroi Saturday was identified as a 33-year-old Algerian national, prosecutors said Sunday. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.
Saturday afternoon, the man — identified publicly only as KB — approached a checkpoint outside the Charleroi police headquarters. He called out “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest, in Arabic) before lashing out with a machete at the heads of two officers, both women.
The two officers were seriously injured in their faces and necks, the state prosecution said in a statement.
A third police officer shot the attacker, who later died in a hospital.
An inquiry began into “attempted terrorist murder,” Prime Minister Charles Michel said at a news conference Sunday.
A bag the man had carried at the time of the attack did not contain arms or explosives, the prosecution said. Two properties around Charleroi were searched overnight.
The attacker, who had lived in Belgium since 2012, was known to police for common law infractions but had not been suspected of terrorist links, the prosecution statement said. He was staying illegally in the country at the time of the attack, having twice ignored orders to leave the country, the office of State Secretary for Migration Theo Francken said in a statement, according to the Belga news agency.
Forced returns to Algeria are “problematic,” despite years of negotiations, Francken said in the statement.
Islamic State claimed the attacker as one of its “soldiers,” in a statement issued by the Aamaq News Agency. The group’s propaganda mouthpiece has made similar claims after recent attacks in France, Germany and the United States.
The attack followed a series of knife and gun attacks across Europe. Some of those attacks were linked to terrorist motives.
In March, the Belgian capital was the site of coordinated suicide bombings that killed more than 30 people .
The country’s threat analysis unit, OCAM, has decided not to change the security alert level at present, Michel said. The country is at level 3 — the second highest — indicating a serious and likely risk of attack.
However, extra security measures will be introduced to protect police officers, Michel said.
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©2016 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany)
4 responses to “Machete attacker in Belgium identified; Islamic State claims responsibility”
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Oh my how surprising, it’s the so called religion of peace, but they not only murder, the way the religion treats women is disgusting.
If you want these events to start happening in the US, vote for Hilary. She will continue the tenure of Obama and let 100,000 Syrian refugees into the US. Who know what other immigrants from terrorist regions will have a pass to come in under the liberal regime.
Oh my I guess we do believe in myths. “Since FY2016 began on October 1, a total of 2,235 Syrian refugees have been resettled in the United States.” of a stated goal of 10,000.
Well, according to Queen Clinton in her address to the CFR a year ago, “we’re not at war with Islam, Muslims are wonderful, peacful, and TOLERANT people, and have nothing to do with terrorism.”