Belgium has avoided a serious attack, its interior minister said on Wednesday, after a suspected suicide bomber planning to explode a large bomb caused only a minor explosion in Brussels’ central station late on Tuesday.
Several media outlets reported unnamed sources as saying the device that failed to fully explode was filled with nails and was similar to the bombs used in the attacks at Brussels airport that killed 32 people in March 2016.
The suspected attacker, who was shot dead by soldiers patrolling the station, was reportedly a 37-year-old man from Molenbeek. The inner city borough has a large immigrant population and was home to some of those involved in Islamic State attacks on Paris and Brussels in 2015 and 2016.
Although no one was hurt, smoke billowing through Central Station sent commuters racing for cover. Police halted rail traffic, evacuated the site and cleared streets crowded with tourists and residents enjoying a hot summer’s evening in the city center between the station and nearby Grand Place, Brussels’ landmark Renaissance town square.
“We will not let ourselves be intimidated, we will go on living our lives as normal,” Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said in a news conference.
The Belgian capital, home to the headquarters of NATO and the European Union, has been on high alert since Brussels-based IS members killed 130 people in Paris in November 2015 and then organized the attack in Brussels months later.
Security experts said Tuesday’s incident could have been similar to “lone-wolf” assaults carried out by radicalized individuals with limited access to weapons and training.
“Such isolated acts will continue in Brussels, in Paris and elsewhere. It’s inevitable,” Brussels security consultant Claude Moniquet told broadcaster RTL.
With Islamic State under pressure in Syria, he said attacks in Europe could increase, although many would be by “amateurs” doing little harm.
He compared Tuesday’s incident to that on Paris’ Champs-Elysees avenue a day earlier, when a man rammed his armed car into a French police convoy.
Rail worker Nicolas Van Herrewegen told Reuters that he was heading downstairs toward the underground platforms that serve long-distance and suburban lines running under Brussels city center when the incident occurred.
As PM Michel consulted his security advisers, the national alert was maintained at its second highest level. Michel also convened a National Security Council meeting on Wednesday morning.
