Soccer fans killing: Suspected extremist shot dead in Brussels, weapon recovered

Amateur videos posted on social media of Monday's attack showed a man wearing an orange fluorescent vest pull up on a scooter, take out a large weapon and open fire on passersby before chasing them into a building to gun them down.

Brussels : A suspect in a shooting rampage that killed two Swedish nationals in Brussels overnight has been shot dead by police and the weapon believed to have been used by the man has been recovered, Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden said on Tuesday. Verlinden told VRT radio that we have the good news that we found the individual.

Amateur videos posted on social media of Monday's attack showed a man wearing an orange fluorescent vest pull up on a scooter, take out a large weapon and open fire on passersby before chasing them into a building to gun them down.

Police shoot dead suspected extremist accused of killing 2 Swedish soccer fans on a Brussels street

Authorities had been searching for a 45-year-old suspected Tunisian extremist who was known to police and was living in Belgium illegally. Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden said that a person may have been shot by police early Tuesday in connection with the rampage. It appears someone has been shot," she told VRT radio. "The federal prosecutor's office still has to confirm the identity of the person.

Last night, three people left for what was supposed to be a wonderful soccer party. Two of them lost their lives in a brutal terrorist attack, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said at a news conference just before dawn. Their lives were cut short in full flight, cut down by extreme brutality. De Croo said his thoughts were with the victims' families and that he had sent his condolences to the Swedish prime minister. Security has been beefed up in the capital, particularly around places linked to the Swedish community in the city.

The attack that was launched yesterday was committed with total cowardice, De Croo said. Not far from the scene of the shooting, the Belgium-Sweden soccer match in the Belgian national stadium was suspended at halftime and the 35,000 fans held inside as a precaution while the attacker was at large. Prosecutor Eric Van Duyse said security measures were urgently taken to protect the Swedish supporters in the stadium.

More than two hours after the game was suspended, a message flashed on the big stadium screen saying, Fans, you can leave the stadium calmly. Stand after stand emptied onto streets filled with police as the search for the attacker continued. Frustrated, confused, scared. I think everyone was quite scared, said Caroline Lochs, a fan from Antwerp.

De Croo said the assailant was a Tunisian man living illegally in Belgium who used a military weapon to kill the two Swedes and shoot a third who is recovering from "severe injuries". Federal Prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw described how the suspect, a 45-year-old man who wasn't named, had posted a video online claiming to have killed three Swedish people.

The suspect is alleged to have said in the video that, for him, the Quran is a red line for which he is ready to sacrifice himself. Sweden raised its terror alert to the second-highest level in August after a series of public Quran-burnings by an Iraqi refugee living in Sweden resulted in threats from Islamic militant groups.

Belgian prosecutors said overnight that nothing suggested the attack was linked to the latest war between Israel and Hamas. Police raided a building in the Brussels neighbourhood of Schaerbeek overnight where the man was thought be staying but did not find him. Sweden's foreign ministry sent out a text message to subscribers in Belgium asking them to be vigilant and to carefully listen to instructions from the Belgian authorities.