Brussels Terrorists Had Possibily Planned an Attack on Nuclear Power Plant

The cooling towers of Belgium's Doel nuclear plant on January 12, 2016 EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

Turkey warned Belgium that el-Bakraoui might have been a foreign fighter in Syria.

The Islamic State’s spying on the nuclear program director has been confirmed by an anonymous U.S. official, according to CBS News. 

Some suspect that a possible infiltration of a nuclear power plant had been averted because ISIS ringleader Salah Abdeslam, a participant in the Paris shootings, was finally captured last week, and that his arrest triggered the Brussel bombings. 

The Brussels bombing of an airport and a subway station left 31 dead and 300 injured, and was the worst terrorist attack in Belgian history. 

In February, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said that there was only a threat “to the person in question, but not the nuclear facilities.” 

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“To date, we have no indication that there is a specific threat to the Belgian nuclear sites. The nuclear industry is one of the best protected areas,” Jambon said, the Independent reports. 

Both of the Belgian nuclear power plants were briefly evacuated after the Brussels attack.