BRUSSELS, Oct. 5 (UPI) — Two police officers were stabbed in the Brussels district of Schaarbeek on Wednesday in a possible terrorist incident, a Federal Prosecutor’s Office spokesman said.
At noon, one officer was stabbed in the neck and another in the abdomen with a knife. The suspect was identified as a former member of the Belgian armed forces, known as 43-year-old Hicham D, spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told Belgian broadcaster VRT. Security forces knew about him because of his contacts with Belgian jihadi fighters who fought in Syria, the spokesman said.
The man broke the nose of another officer who shot the suspect in the leg, police said.
The suspect and the officers were taken to as hospital.
The stabbed police officers are “not in a life-threatening condition,” the spokesman told CNN.
“One man was staggering on the pavement,” an eyewitness on the fifth floor told VRT. “It soon appeared he had been shot in the leg. He was strongly built and wearing a sweatshirt with a hood.”
The attack came hours after the Brussels Nord train station was evacuated following an anonymous bomb threat.
The city is on high terror alert.
On March 22, suicide bombers struck the city’s airport and a subway station, killing 32 people and injuring more than 300.
On Sept. 7, a man carrying a knife attacked two police officers in the Molenbeek area of Brussels, but the officers only sustained bruises because were wearing bulletproof vests.
