Police hunt for suspected third bomber in Brussels attacks

Belgian police issued a wanted notice for a suspect in the bomb attack on Brussels airport on Tuesday, in which at least 14 people were killed, as officers conducted multiple raids across the country.

At least 34 people were killed and dozens were wounded in twin attacks Tuesday morning, 14 in the departure terminal of Brussels’s airport and 20 more at the Maalbeek metro station a short while later, authorities said.

A CCTV screen shot of the suspect showed a bespectacled man with a goatee, wearing a white jacket and black hat, and pushing a trolley with a large black bag.

Authorities earlier released a grainy picture of the same man alongside two men with dark hair who were also pushing trolleys with similar bags.

Both of those men wore black gloves on their left hands.

Belgian officials said there were two bomb blasts in the main airport hall on Tuesday morning, at least one of which was a suicide bombing.

A third bomb that failed to explode was found later, a regional governor said.

“Three bombs were brought into the building, of which one failed to explode,” Lodewijk De Witte, the governor of Flemish Brabant province, told a press conference at the airport.

He said it was later destroyed in a controlled explosion.

Police launched a series of operations in various locations in Belgium, and prosecutors said that one counter-terrorism raid in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek yielded a nail bomb, “chemical products” and an Islamic State flag.

The Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for the attacks several hours earlier. “Soldiers of the caliphate… carried out an attack targeting the crusader state of Belgium, which is fighting Islam and its people,” the group said in a statement posted online.

Britain updated its travel advice to warn against all but essential travel to Brussels, and sent a team of police to assist investigators in the Belgian capital.

“The Belgian authorities are currently advising against travel to Brussels; you are advised to follow the instructions of the Belgian security authorities,” read a statement from the government.

The Foreign Ministry’s previous travel advice had been for British citizens to “remain alert and vigilant” and “stay away from crowded places.”

Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokeswoman said Tuesday that specialist police officers were also being sent to Brussels to help with the investigation.

“They will be gathering together as much material as possible that can help them with the investigation,” she said. “It is working on the investigation, trying to work out what happened, who is responsible.”

Britain has already announced increased security at international transport hubs.

Authorities defined the explosions as terror attacks and the public transport system in the city was shut down in the wake of the blasts.

According to the Belgian VTM TV channel, police discovered an unexploded suicide vest at the Brussels airport. The report said a Kalashnikov assault rifle had also been located at the site.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, speaking on national television, described the attacks as “blind, violent and cowardly.”

Interior Minister Jan Jambon announced that Belgium’s terror threat had been raised from three to a maximum of four, and the country’s national security council was due to meet.

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said authorities feared that suspects involved in the deadly attacks could still be at large.

“The inquiry is still ongoing… because we fear that people are still at large,” Reynders told RTBF television after a news briefing in the Belgian capital.

Brussels residents were told to “stay where you are,” while Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo urged people to avoid making calls to stop the city’s mobile networks getting saturated, and to communicate with online messages instead.

The blasts come four days after the dramatic arrest in Brussels on Friday of Saleh Abdeslam, prime suspect in the Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people in November.

After being on the run for four months, Abdeslam, 26, was shot in the leg and captured Friday along with a suspected accomplice in a massive Belgian police raid in Brussels. Three others were also detained, but two were released on Saturday.