2016 Brussels bombings
On 22 March 2016, two coordinated terrorist attacks in and close to Brussels, Belgium, were carried out by the Islamic State. Two suicide bombers detonated bombs at Brussels Airport in Zaventem just outside Brussels, and one detonated a bomb on a train leaving Maelbeek/Maalbeek metro station in the city's European Quarter. Thirty-two people were killed and more than 300 were injured. Three perpetrators also died. A third airport attacker fled the scene without detonating his bomb, which was later found in a search of the airport. A second metro attacker also fled, taking his bomb with him. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The perpetrators belonged to a terrorist cell that had been involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks and the attacks happened shortly after a series of police raids targeting the group. The Belgian Government declared three days of national mourning after the bombings, which were the deadliest attacks on Belgium since World War II.
In December 2022, ten men accused of involvement in the attacks went on trial in Brussels. Six were convicted of terrorist-related murder and attempted murder, while two were convicted of terrorist activities.
Background
Belgium was a participant in the military intervention against the Islamic State during the War in Iraq. In September 2014, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives voted to send six F-16s for one month to support the US-led coalition.Belgium had more nationals fighting for jihadist forces as a proportion of its population than any other Western European country, with an estimated 440 Belgians having left for Syria and Iraq as of January 2015. Estimates suggested that Belgium had supplied the highest per capita number of fighters to Syria of any European nation, with 350 to 550 fighters, out of a total population of 11 million that includes fewer than 500,000 Muslims. Some reports have claimed Belgium's weak security apparatus and competing intelligence agencies made it a hub of jihadist-recruiting and terrorist activity, while others assert that Belgium faces the same problems as many European countries in this regard. According to Kenneth Lasoen, security expert at Ghent University, the attacks happened more as a result of policy failure rather than intelligence failure.
Terrorist cells in Brussels
Before the bombings, several Islamist terrorist attacks had originated from Belgium, and a number of counter-terrorist operations had been carried out there. Between 2014 and 2015, the number of wiretapping and surveillance operations directed at suspected terrorists by Belgian intelligence almost doubled. In May 2014, a French gunman who had spent over a year in Syria, attacked the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people. In January 2015, anti-terrorist operations against a group thought to be planning an imminent attack had left two suspects dead in the town of Verviers, with raids in Brussels and Zaventem also being carried out. In August 2015, a terrorist shot and injured a passenger aboard a high-speed train on its way from Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels, before he was subdued by other passengers.The November 2015 Paris attacks were co-ordinated from Belgium and Brussels was locked down for five days to allow the police to search for suspects with the aid of the military. On 18 March 2016, four days before the Brussels bombings, Salah Abdeslam and another suspect in the Paris attacks were captured after two anti-terrorist raids in Brussels. A third suspect was killed during one of the raids. During questioning the day after his arrest, Abdeslam claimed not to know the El Bakroui brothers or to recognize them from photographs. Belgian investigators believed that Abdeslam's arrest may have hastened the Brussels bombings. According to the Belgian Interior Minister, Jan Jambon, who spoke after the bombings, authorities knew of preparations for an extremist act in Europe, but they underestimated the scale of the attack.
Attacks
There were two coordinated attacks: two attackers exploded nail bombs at Brussels Airport, and one attacker exploded a bomb at Maelbeek metro station.Brussels Airport
Two suicide bombers, carrying explosives in large suitcases, attacked the departure hall at Brussels Airport in Zaventem. The first explosion occurred at 07:58 in check-in row 11; the second explosion occurred about nine seconds later in check-in row 2. The suicide bombers were visible in CCTV footage. Some witnesses said that before the first explosion occurred, there were shouts in Arabic. Some also reported hearing gunfire but investigators established that no shots were fired, although both suicide bombers were carrying handguns which had detonated due to the explosions.A third suicide bomber left the airport without detonating his bomb, which was later found in a search of the airport and destroyed by a controlled explosion.
Maelbeek metro station
Just over an hour later, at 9:11, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a rucksack in the middle carriage of a three-carriage train at Maelbeek metro station, located near the European Commission headquarters in the European Quarter of Brussels, from Brussels Airport. The train was travelling on line 5 towards the city centre, and was pulling out of Maelbeek metro station when the bomb exploded. The driver immediately stopped the train and helped to evacuate the passengers. The Brussels Metro was subsequently shut down at 09:27.A second suicide bomber carrying a bomb in a rucksack left the metro without detonating his bomb, instead taking it back to a hideout in Etterbeek, an eastern municipality of Brussels, where he dismantled it.
Victims
Thirty-two people, excluding the three suicide bombers, were killed in the attacks and over 300 were injured. Sixteen died in the airport attack and sixteen in the metro attack. The bombings were the deadliest attack on Belgium since World War II.Seventeen of the victims were Belgian and the rest were foreign nationals. Foreign victims came from different countries including the US, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, China, India and Peru. They ranged in age from 20 years to 79 years.
Among the fatalities at the airport was retired diplomat André Adam, who had served as Belgian Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as Ambassador to the United States.
On 25 July 2023, a Brussels court ruled that three people who had died in the years following the attacks should be recognised as victims and the official number of victims was revised from 32 to 35. One woman died by euthanasia due to psychological suffering, one man died by suicide and one man died of cancer, his treatment having been interrupted due to the injuries he sustained in the metro bombing.
Perpetrators
Profiles
A total of five attackers took bombs into the airport and metro, with three of them dying in suicide bombings and the remaining two, who left without detonating their bombs, arrested sixteen days later. All five had also been involved in the planning and organization of the November 2015 Paris attacks. They were identified and named as:- Ibrahim El Bakraoui, aged 29, was one of the suicide bombers at Brussels Airport. In 2010, he had shot and injured a police officer during an attempted robbery at a currency exchange office. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was released early. In June 2015 he was arrested in Turkey near the Syrian border and deported. He was wanted in connection with the Paris attacks.
- Najim Laachraoui, aged 24, was one of the suicide bombers at Brussels Airport. He had travelled to Syria in 2013. He is believed to have made the bombs used in the Paris attacks.
- Khalid El Bakraoui: aged 27, the younger brother of Ibrahim El Bakraoui, carried out the suicide bombing at Maelbeek metro station. In 2012 he received a prison sentence for a violent car-jacking. He was wanted for breaching his parole conditions and also in connection with the Paris attacks.
- Mohamed Abrini, born 27 December 1984, fled Brussels Airport without detonating his bomb. He was arrested on 8 April 2016. He was a childhood friend of brothers Salah Abdeslam and Brahim Adbeslam, who were both involved in the Paris attacks. On 29 June 2022 at a court in Paris, Abrini was convicted of involvement in the attacks and received a sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years.
- Osama Krayem: born 16 August 1992, accompanied Khalid El Bakraoui to the metro but fled without detonating his explosives. He was arrested on 8 April 2016. Having grown up in Sweden, he went to Syria in 2015 and joined the IS group. On 29 June 2022 at the Paris attacks trial, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Investigation
This early lead allowed the police to search the apartment on the Rue Max Roos the same day. They found a suitcase bomb that had been left behind because it would not fit into the taxi, and also bomb making material and equipment and an IS flag. Earlier in the morning of 22 March 2016, municipal workers clearing rubbish in the Rue Max Roos had retrieved a laptop from a bin. When they realized that it contained IS-related material they handed it to the police. Analysis of the laptop revealed numerous files relating to IS, the Paris attacks, potential targets, as well as messages, texts, wills and photographs created by the Brussels attackers.
On 24 and 25 March 2016 police arrested twelve people in raids in Belgium, France and Germany. One man was identified as the third airport attacker, the "man in the hat" seen on CCTV with the two suicide bombers at the airport on the day of the attacks. He was charged with terrorist offences. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity and the man was released after providing an alibi. Abrini later admitted to being the "man in the hat". The FBI's Next Gen Identification System facial recognition software helped confirm the identification of the "man with the hat" on CCTV footage as Abrini.
While the airport attackers were using the hideout in the Rue Max Roos in Schaerbeek, the metro attackers were using a hideout in the municipality of Etterbeek in the south-east of Brussels. Analysis of phone records had located them in the area on the morning of the attacks, but it was only after the arrest of Krayem on 8 April 2016 that police were given the address of a studio apartment in the Avenue des Casernes/Kazernenlaan. A search of the studio revealed little, as it had in the meantime been cleaned, but CCTV recording from the entrance hall of the block allowed investigators to track the movements of members of the Brussels cell who had stayed at or visited the address.