[h=1]Terror suspect shot and held by Brussels police 'had been jailed for seven years for helping Taliban assassinate Afghan leader two days before 9/11'[/h]
Police arrested terror suspect Abderaman A. at a tram stop in Brussels
He was shot in leg as officers thought he was carrying a bomb in his bag
Now it has emerged he already spent seven years in jail for Afghan killing
Convicted of helping Taliban to assassinate Commander Massoud two day before 9/11
By FLORA DRURY IN BRUSSELS, BELGIUM and JENNIFER NEWTON FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 16:43, 26 March 2016 | UPDATED: 17:49, 26 March 2016
A terror suspect who was arrested by police in Brussels after a dramatic stand-off at a tram stop is believed to have previously been jailed for helping to assassinate an Afghan leader just days before 9/11.
Belgian prosecutors said that Abderaman A. was shot in the leg at the tram stop in Schaerbeek because he was carrying a rucksack police believed contained a bomb.
It came as the investigation continued into Tuesday terror attacks in Belgium at Brussels Airport and a metro station in the city, which left 31 people dead.
Belgian prosecutors said that Abderaman A. was shot in the leg at the tram stop in Schaerbeek because he was carrying a rucksack police believed contained a bomb
Today prosecutors announced that he was being held for another 24 hours as investigations continued. However, it has also been revealed in Belgian media that the suspect, they have named as Abderaman Ameroud, was jailed for seven years in France in 2005 for providing logistical support for the killing of Afghan resistance leader Ahmed Shah Masood.
Ameroud, who is of French Algerian descent, lived in Afghanistan and was convicted of helping the Taliban to assassinate the commander. Mr Masood, who was a prominent Afghan leader in the north of the country, was blown up two days before the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., by two men posing as journalists.
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Former Afghan Commander Ahmed Shah Masood, who was killed by the Taliban two days before 9/11. Abderaman Ameroud who was arrested in a shoot-out at a tram stop in Brussels, spent seven years in jail for helping to organise the assassination
His death stunned the country and his rebel forces soon joined up with US troops in their fight against the Taliban following the 9/11 terror attacks. Osama bin Laden is widely believed to have ordered Massoud's killing as a favour to the Taliban, whose protection would be critical after the 9/11 attacks. Passports found on Mr Masood's killers were linked to a Brussels-based militant cell run by Tarek Maaroufi. Ameroud was handed a sentence of seven years when he went on trial for his part in the assassination at a court in Paris in 2005.
As the camera moves to include the tram stop, it shows a child crouching by the side of the shot suspect, named Abderaman A as and the man in orange calls for the boy or girl to leave the man
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The man in orange manages to convince the child to leave the suspect on the ground, and police - including one carrying a shield - back away
Ameroud was arrested yesterday in Brussels after a stand-off with police where he took a woman hostage. Witnesses told how heavily armed anti-terror police shot him in the leg because he was carrying a rucksack they believed contained a bomb. As police moved in the suspect then grabbed a woman and pulled her to the ground. In heart-stopping footage captured from a balcony above where the drama unfolded, the man can be seen letting a little girl no older than five go as officers get closer.
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Belgian police drag Abderaman A. along a tramway platform after he was shot following a raid in the Brussels borough of Schaerbeek
The clip then shows specially trained anti-terror police in bullet proof vests gently coaxing the frightened girl to safety as the target grabbed the woman. The shooting took place in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek – the scene of a number of anti-terror raids in the last few days. Najim Laachraoui, the master bomber who blew himself up at Zaventem airport on Tuesday, killing 14, and whose DNA was found on the suicide vests in Paris, lived in Schaerbeek. DNA traces of Balal Hadfi, one of the Paris bombers, were also found in a flat in Schaerbeek along with a cache of explosives in December.
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Police arrested and charged a man identified as Faycal Cheffou, pictured, with terrorist murder over the Brussels terror attacks on Tuesday.
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Belgium media reports suggest Cheffou, a freelance journalist, is the third bomber pictured walking through Brussels Airport before the attacks with Ibrahim El Bakraoui, centre, and Najim Laachraoui, left
The news comes as police arrested and charged a man identified as Faycal Cheffou with terrorist murder over the Brussels terror attacks on Tuesday. Belgium media reports suggest Cheffou, a freelance journalist, is the third bomber pictured walking through Brussels Airport before the attacks with Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui. However that has not been confirmed by Belgian prosecutors. But one source close to the investigation, said: 'That is a hypothesis the investigators are working on.' Reports in the Belgian media also say that the taxi driver who took the suicide bombers to the airport on Tuesday morning has said he believes the man wearing the white jacket and hat is Cheffou.
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Captured! Dramatic arrest of the 'man in white' seen at Brussels Airport whose own sister reported him to the police TWO YEARS ago
The 'man in white' seen moments before the Brussels airport bombings has reportedly been captured alive
Local media named Faycal Cheffou as the suspect pictured at the terminal
Along with two other men, he was charged yesterday with 'involvement in a terrorist group, terrorist killings and attempted terrorist killings'
By IAN GALLAGHER and JABER MOHAMED FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY PUBLISHED: 23:05, 26 March 2016 | UPDATED: 00:26, 27 March 2016 The 'man in white' seen moments before the Brussels airport bombings has reportedly been captured alive and charged with terrorism offences.
Belgian media named Faycal Cheffou as the suspect pictured alongside Ibrahim El-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui shortly before they detonated suicide bombs in the departure hall, killing 14 people.
Along with two other men, he was charged yesterday with 'involvement in a terrorist group, terrorist killings and attempted terrorist killings' following a series of arrests last week. At the time, police feared another attack was imminent.
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The mysterious 'man in white', pictured on CCTV at the airport terminal shortly before the deadly attack
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Belgian media named Faycal Cheffou as the 'man in white' suspect (pictured right) alongside Ibrahim El-Bakraoui (centre) and Najim Laachraoui (left) shortly before they detonated suicide bombs in the departure hall, killing 14 people.
The revelations came as:
A security guard at a nuclear facility in Belgium was murdered in his home, prompting renewed fears that terrorists are plotting to make a radioactive 'dirty' bomb;
The three men charged yesterday over the Brussels attacks were linked to the network of IS jihadis behind November's Paris attacks;
Cheffou's sister said she warned police two years ago about her brother's desire to travel to Syria – the latest in a series of blunders and apparent missed opportunities to avert the attacks;
Two unnamed British businessmen caught in the blasts remain in hospital undergoing extensive surgery on 'life-changing' injuries;
A 'solidarity' march planned for today was cancelled because Belgian police are too 'stretched' dealing with the terror investigation, while US singer Mariah Carey has cancelled a Brussels concert;
Brussels airport will remain closed until Tuesday at the earliest.
Prosecutors have not officially confirmed that freelance journalist Cheffou is indeed the man wearing a hat and a light-coloured summer jacket in the footage, and seen running away after his device, hidden in baggage, failed to go off at the airport terminal on Tuesday. But a source close to the investigation said 'that is a hypothesis investigators are working on'.
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Ibrahim El Bakraoui, left, and Najim Laachraoui, right, who carried out the attack at Brussels Airport on Tuesday
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The federal prosecutor's office said in a statement today that an arrest warrant has been issued for a man identified as Faycal Cheffou
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the taxi driver who drove the three bombers to the airport told police that Cheffou – arrested on Thursday night – 'looks a lot like one of them'. The driver also revealed that the men were 'ranting' about Britain and the United States during the journey to the airport. A close friend of the driver said: 'He told me they were going on about how Britain and the US were bombing Syria and how they would have to pay. He thought nothing of this at the time – a lot of young men express these sentiments here – but he later recognised the men from the CCTV. 'The police spoke to him for hours and said he was lucky he wasn't blown to bits himself as the bombs could have gone off accidentally.'
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It was claimed yesterday that Cheffou's sister reported him to police in 2014, saying she was worried he was planning to go to Syria but was 'waiting [for] the right moment'.
And Cheffou was also accused of attempting to recruit migrants in Brussels to radical groups. The Brussels mayor, Yvan Mayeur, had told police several times that he was dangerous and should be detained. Prosecutors apparently refused. Then, in September last year, the mayor obtained a restraining order banning Cheffou from approaching migrants in a park where they frequently gathered. Cheffou also appeared in a video in which he complained that Muslims at a migrants' centre in Brussels were served meals before the end of the Ramadan fast. It is understood Cheffou lived in a small studio in an apartment building just 500 yards from Maelbeek metro station, where suicide bomber Khalid El-Bakraoui – brother of Ibrahim – killed 20 people last week. Police cleared the building of all residents and spent five hours searching his small home. A resident told a Belgian newspaper that she heard investigators say they had not found weapons or explosives but had 'found enough'.
. URKEY WARNED BELGIUM ABOUT THREE JIHADIS ON THE MOVE
Turkey gave Belgium ‘multiple’ warnings about the Brussels suicide bombers.
Khalid El-Bakraoui, his brother Ibrahim, and Najim Laachraoui had all visited Turkey in the past year, apparently intending to travel on to Syria.
Airport bomber Ibrahim, 29, was even deported to Europe on two occasions – yet the Belgian authorities took no action.
Officials in the country could not find any link between El-Bakraoui and terrorist networks, so he was released.
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The aftermath of the explosions at Brussels airport in terror attacks on Tuesday. Today Belgian prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for a new suspect in the terror attacks
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The Brussels terror attacks on Tuesday saw 31 people killed at both Brussels Airport and on the city's Metro at Maalbeck station
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Last night, police said that Faycal Cheffou had been arrested on Thursday night in Brussels as he was standing outside one of the federal prosecutor's offices in the city. A search was then carried out at his home but no weapons or explosives were found. Two other suspects, identified as Aboubakar A. and Rabah N., were charged with 'terrorist activities and membership of a terrorist group'. Rabah N. was wanted in connection with a related raid in France on Thursday that the government said foiled a 'major terrorist attack'. French president Francois Hollande said the network behind the Paris attacks that killed 130 people in November and the Brussels bombings on Tuesday was being 'wiped out'. He admitted, though, that the threat remained high and other terror rings were still at large. Belgian prosecutors said they were holding another suspect, Abderamane Ameroud, for an extra 24 hours. He was shot in the leg by police in Brussels on Friday in the Schaerbeek district where the Brussels bombings were prepared.
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POLICE MISSED LINK TO PARIS ATACKS
Police missed a golden opportunity to obtain information ahead of the Brussels attacks by failing to question a notorious jihadi properly.
Salah Abdeslam, who spent four months in hiding after his abortive role in the Paris atrocity last November, was also suspected of being part of the Belgian cell, thought to have been planning attacks timed for Easter.
He was shown pictures of the El-Bakraoui brothers following his arrest, but simply said ‘I don’t know them’ and he was not pushed to say any more. However, police announced he was being interrogated and it is feared that the bombers brought forward their attacks before their cover was blown.
Abdeslam is also linked to properties used by the Brussels bombers, but since the atrocities he has refused to answer further questions, with prosecutors saying he had ‘exercised his right to silence’.
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Mohamed Abrini is believed to have played a major role in organising this week's terror attacks in Brussels, which killed 31 people and injured hundreds more
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Emergency services gather at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels to remember those killed in the Belgium terror attacks
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Belgium's interior minister has appealed to residents not to rally in solidarity for the victims of Tuesday's attacks tomorrow saying police are too overstretched
. However, his arrest was also linked to Thursday's raid in Paris.
. Ameroud was reportedly convicted in 2003 as an accomplice in the assassination of the Afghan political and military leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, two years earlier. One of those arrested on Friday, Tawfik A., was released 'after extensive questioning', the prosecutor's office said. The arrest comes after it was suggested another man, Mohammed Abrini, was the mysterious 'man in white' at the airport. Abrini is believed to have played a major role in organising the attacks in Brussels, in which 31 people were killed and hundreds were injured. In a separate development yesterday, it emerged a security officer at a Belgian nuclear facility was shot dead two days after the Brussels bombings. It prompted new fears that terrorists are plotting to make a radioactive dirty bomb, although officials later stressed the murder was not terror-related. Didier Prospero, 45 – hit by four bullets at close range – was found in the bathroom of his remote farmhouse by his three children when they returned from school on Thursday. Next to him lay his Beauceron guard dog, also shot dead. Despite prosecutors' insistence that there was no terrorism motive, it is known that atomic facilities in Belgium are being targeted by an Islamic State network operating across Europe. Before they blew themselves up in the capital, Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakraoui had been spying on a senior nuclear power official, prompting fears that they were planning a cataclysmic atrocity. One Belgian installation is only 90 miles from Kent. It later emerged that 11 workers from a nuclear plant east of Brussels had their site access revoked amid fears that the brothers had received 'insider help'. Prospero lived with his wife Sarah and their children a mile from the town of Froidchapelle, close to the French border. Locals described him as an 'ordinary family man' and said the town was bewildered by the killing
. WARNING BY BOMBERS' FATHER IGNORED
The father of jihadis Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakraoui is said to have warned police two years ago that they had been radicalised and might have gone to Syria. Jamal El-Bakraoui, a retired butcher, is now ‘devastated’ that his warning apparently went unheeded. Following the Brussels attacks, he spoke about his distress to the imam at a mosque in the Laeken district of the city, where he lives with his wife. The imam said: ‘He lost contact with his sons a few years ago when they became increasingly involved in crime. Now Jamal is devastated at what his sons have done – and wishes they had been stopped.’ Neighbours said Mr El-Bakraoui had become withdrawn from the community after the attacks, only leaving his house to go to prayers.
