Police officer stabbed to death and another cop injured ‘by knifeman who shouted Allahu Akbar’ at Brussels train station
A POLICE officer has been stabbed to death near a train station in Brussels.
The attacker, who was also carrying a gun, is said to have shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he knifed the officer and shot his colleague.
One of the officers, a 29-year-old inspector, was stabbed in the neck and died while the other was shot in the groin, reports Sudinfo.be.
Their colleagues opened fire on the attacker and exchange of gunfire took place in which he was shot dead.
The incident happened on a road in the Schaerbeek area, near to the Bruxelles-Nord station at around 7.15pm local time.
According to Sudinfo, earlier in the day the man went to a police station and announced he was going to “perpetrate an attack on police officers”.
READ MORE ON BELGIUM
The attack is being treated as a terrorist incident, according to Le Soir.
“One of our patrols was attacked by a man armed with a knife,” said Brussels police.
“They then called for reinforcements. A policeman from another patrol used his firearm to neutralize the attacker. “
Belgium’s interior minister Annelies Verlinden tweeted: “What a horrible tragedy.
“This event breaks my heart. My thoughts go above all to the relatives of the officers and to the whole of the police force.”
The Belgian capital was the scene of deadly ISIS terrorist attacks in March 2016.
Three jihadi’s detonated devices in the airport and on the metro system killing and maiming innocents as they waited for flights or travelled to work.
On the morning of the 22nd March 2016 two suicide bombers armed with explosives crammed into suitcases walked into the departures hall of Zaventem Airport.
At 7:58am the first bomb was detonated in check in row 11 with the second exploding nine seconds later by row 2.
Yells in Arabic were heard before the nail bombs were detonated.
A third bomber was prevented from detonating his device by an earlier explosion and fled the scene, leaving his bomb.
Read More on The Sun
Just over an hour later another blast erupted on metro system in the city centre.
In the middle carriage of a three car train at Maalbeek station, near the European Commission headquarters, the bomb went off as it was pulling out of the station.