Euro 2016 was real target of Brussels terrorists

PARIS — The Islamic State terrorist cell behind the Paris and Brussels attacks was targeting the Euro 2016 football tournament in France this summer, according to French media.

Mohamed Abrini, who was arrested last Friday (April 8), told Belgian investigators that the group switched gears and hit Brussels instead because they feared police were closing in on them, according to the French newspaper Libération.

“According to our information, Mohamed Abrini has explained the initial intention of this nebulous terrorist Franco-Belgian terrorist group was to go into action during the Euro football tournament,” Libération reported, as cited by The Guardian.

Meanwhile, Belgian authorities have charged two more men with offenses related to the Brussels bombings.

The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that the suspects, identified only as Smail F and Ibrahim F, were involved in renting an apartment in the Etterbeek area of Brussels that served as a hideout for the bomber who attacked the Brussels subway as well as a suspected accomplice.

The football championship, one of the world’s major sporting events, is happening in 10 cities across France for a month starting June 10. The opening and final matches are scheduled to be played at Paris’ Stade de France, which was also part of last year’s Nov. 13 attacks, which killed 130 people.

French prosecutors had said on Sunday that the cell originally planned to target France and police appeared unsurprised by the latest revelation from Abrini. “It’s hardly a scoop to learn that the terrorist were hoping to attack during the Euro,” a police officer was quoted saying. “The security forces are always examining possible attack scenarios to know how to respond.”

Abrini, 31, was one of six arrested in raids in the Belgian capital on Friday. He had confessed over the that he was the third bomber at Brussels airport, known as “the man in the hat,” whom CCTV captured leaving a bag of explosives at the airport, then fleeing. Even before the Brussels attacks, he was on the run after police identified him as a suspect in the Paris attacks.

He was reported to have told investigators that members of the cell were worried police were closing in on them after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the last surviving Paris attacker. They then decided to stage the March 22 attacks on the Brussels airport and metro system, killing 32 people.

Even as the United States, its allies and Russia have killed leaders of the Islamic State, and have rolled back some of the extremist organisation’s gains on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, the militants appear to be posing a largely hidden and lethal threat across much of Europe.

There may have been other targets. CNN, which also reported the Euro 2016 link citing an unnamed source, said a computer used by Brussels attackers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui – found in a trash can outside the cell’s bomb factory – contained a file of research on La Defense shopping mall in Paris and a Catholic association, indicating they might have been potential targets.

Police are continuing to hunt down more people linked to the Paris and Brussels attacks. 36 are thought to be involved, of which 13 are dead and most of the rest in custody. The rest are in hiding or on the run. AGENCIES