Belgian federal police are searching for a man who they believe is a suspect in the Brussels attacks today, caught on surveillance video with two purported suicide bombers.
A
surveillance photo taken from inside Brussel’s Zaventem airport
apparently minutes before the deadly blasts and released publicly shows
three men, two dressed nearly identically in dark clothes and one in a
light jacket with a hat pulled down. Belgian authorities said the two
similarly-dressed men are believed to be the suicide bombers who killed
10 innocent people, but the third man is thought to have survived the
attack and is “actively wanted.” Prior to the blasts, each of the men
are pushing baggage carts with what appears to be black duffel bags on
them.
While authorities have released little further
information regarding the trio, Rich Frankel, former head of
counter-terrorism for the FBI
in New York, told ABC News it appeared that the third man may have been
a “handler” for the two suicide bombers and was meant to slip away.“You have him dressed a little differently, and you have him wearing a hat and you have him wearing glasses… It is enough that it causes it to be harder to identify the person,” said Frankel, now an ABC News consultant. “He could be the person who brings them to the airport. He could be the individual who makes sure they actually carry out the attack, or if they are not able to carry out the terrorist attack, he’s able to spurt them away or advise his terrorist cell that it did not take place.”
Two explosions were reported this morning, but this afternoon Arnaud Feist, the airport’s CEO, confirmed that a third explosive device did not detonate and instead was neutralized by police. The device was found in a suitcase, leading investigators to suspect that was the hiding place for the other two devices, according to Zaventem Mayor Francis Vermeiren.
In one curious
detail, it appears that the two men identified by authorities as the
suspected suicide bombers were each wearing a single black glove on
their left hands. Frankel said it’s possible they needed the gloves to
handle live wires or make other last-minute preparations for the bombs.
There’s also the possibility that the men were hiding something in the
gloves themselves, Frankel said, “and that’s the reason to cover those
strings or those wires – so that if [otherwise] law enforcement or a
civilian saw, they might raise the alarm.”
The
dual bombing at the airport occurred around 8 a.m. local time and was
followed just over an hour later by a third bombing in a Brussels subway
station. That bomb killed 21 others. In total, more than 200 people
were injured in the two attacks, including several Americans.
An ISIS-affiliated website reported today that the terror group claimed responsibility
for the attacks, claiming its “fighters” carried out the bombings
against “the Belgian capital of Brussels, a country participating in the
international coalition against the Islamic State.Source: Yahoo News
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