ISIS Claims Responsibility for Brussels Attack That Killed 31

Bombs exploded Tuesday at the Brussels airport and in the city’s subway, killing at least 31 people and wounding dozens, as a European capital was again locked down amid heightened security threats. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
ISIS Claims Responsibility for Brussels Attack That Killed 31
ISIS terrorists parade down a street in Raqqa, Syria, on Jan. 14, 2014. ISIS Website via AP
The Associated Press
Updated:

BRUSSELS—Bombs exploded Tuesday at the Brussels airport and in the city’s subway, killing at least 31 people and wounding dozens, as a European capital was again locked down amid heightened security threats. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks.

We are at war. We have been subjected for the last few months in Europe to acts of war.
Manuel Valls, French Prime Minister

We were walking in the debris. It was a war scene.
Zach Mouzoun, witness

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Brussels attacks, saying in a posting on the group’s Amaq news agency that its extremists opened fire in the airport and “several of them” detonated suicide belts. It said another suicide attacker struck in the subway.

The posting claimed the attack was in response to Belgium’s support of the international coalition arrayed against the group.

Broken glass and blood is seen outside an entrance to Maelbeek metro station following todays attack on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
Broken glass and blood is seen outside an entrance to Maelbeek metro station following todays attack on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. Carl Court/Getty Images

Michel said there was no immediate evidence linking the attacks with Abdeslam. After his arrest, Abdeslam told authorities he had created a new network and was planning new attacks.

Certain neighborhoods in Brussels, like the Molenbeek quarter, have bred extremists and supplied foreign fighters. Plotters linked to the Paris attacks and others have either moved through, or lived in, parts of the city.

Zach Mouzoun, who arrived on a flight from Geneva about 10 minutes before the first blast, told BFM television that the second, louder explosion brought down ceilings and ruptured pipes, mixing water with victims’ blood.

“It was atrocious. The ceilings collapsed,” he said. “There was blood everywhere, injured people, bags everywhere.”

“We were walking in the debris. It was a war scene,” Mouzoun said.