Brussels Airport Lifts Emergency Precautions After Bomb Scare

 Belgium took emergency precautions at the Brussels international airport on Wednesday evening after receiving threats that bombs were on incoming planes, but within a couple of hours the measures were lifted.

Initially, the threats were being “taken extremely seriously,” said Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, which handles terrorism cases, according to La Libre, a Belgian newspaper.

But soon after several planes landed, an unidentified Interior Ministry spokesman was quoted in Belgian media as saying, “Actually there was no concrete threat.”

Belgium has had repeated terrorism threats, as well as attacks and attempted attacks, in the last 18 months. On March 22, attackers connected to the Islamic State detonated at least three bombs targeting Brussels Airport in Zaventem and a nearby Métro station close to European Union offices in the city. The attack left 32 dead and more than 300 injured. On Saturday, a man attacked and wounded two police officers with a machete in the central Belgian town of Charleroi. The Islamic State said that the attacker, who was shot and later died from his wounds, was one of its “soldiers.”

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Image courtesy of Reuters