Bomb Is Detonated in Brussels Train Station
By JAMES KANTER and RUSSELL GOLDMANJUNE 20, 2017
BRUSSELS — A man detonated a bomb in the Brussels Central train station on Tuesday, officials said, leading the police
and military to evacuate a popular tourist area of the Belgian capital months after coordinated terrorist attacks in the city killed more than 30 people.
The spokesman, Eric Van der Sypt, said the government considered the botched attack a "terrorist act." He would not, however, confirm whether the suspect had been killed, saying only
that the man had been "neutralized." An official in the prosecutor’s office said the blast occurred near the person who detonated the device, around 8:30 p.m.
The platform worker, Nicolas Van Herrewegen, said he did not see what happened to the man after the explosion, but a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor later told reporters
that the man had been shot by soldiers patrolling the station.
A platform worker at the station said that before the blast, he heard a man shout "Allahu akbar" (Arabic for "God is great")
and saw him try to enter an office with a rolling suitcase before detonating the device at another location.
Officers patrolling the area evacuated the station as well as the nearby Grand Place, a Unesco World Heritage site and a major tourist destination.
Belgium has been on alert since suicide bombers killed 32 people in coordinated
attacks on the Brussels subway and an international airport in March 2016.