Belgian soldiers have shot a man suspected of being a would-be suicide bomber at Brussels Central Station, officials say.<\/p>\n
He was shot after reportedly setting off a small explosion and no-one else is believed to have been injured.<\/p>\n
Police say the situation is under control. The station and the city’s Grand Place were evacuated.<\/p>\n
In March 2016, 32 people died in attacks on Brussels claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.<\/p>\n
According to Belgian newspaper La Libre, quoting prosecutors, the man who was shot was wearing a rucksack and a bomb belt.<\/p>\n
He detonated a device when he attracted the attention of soldiers in the station, the paper says.<\/p>\n
Several Belgian media outlets quote witnesses as saying the man shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic) before setting off the explosion.<\/p>\n
The condition of the injured suspect was not immediately known.<\/p>\n
Nicolas Van Herrewegen, a railway sorting agent, told reporters he had gone down to the station’s mezzanine level when he heard someone shouting.<\/p>\n
“Then he cried ‘Allahu Akbar’ and he blew up a trolley,” he was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.<\/p>\n
“I was behind a wall when it exploded. I went down and alerted my colleagues to evacuate everyone. He [the suspect] was still around but after that we didn’t see him.”<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t exactly a big explosion but the impact was pretty big,” he added. “People were running away.”<\/p>\n
Mr Van Herrewegen described the suspect as well-built and tanned with short hair, wearing a white shirt and jeans.<\/p>\n
“I saw that he had something on him because I could see wires emerging, so it may have been a suicide vest,” he said.<\/p>\n
Arash Aazami arrived at the station just after the explosion. He told the BBC: “As we entered into the station, we were evacuated loudly by some security personnel.<\/p>\n
“Looked around, saw people running in the streets, trying to seek refuge and decided to do the same ourselves.”<\/p>\n
As the station and Grand Place were evacuated, businesses and restaurants were ordered to close and draw down their shutters, RTL radio reports.<\/p>\n
Metro lines running through the station were also briefly suspended on orders of the police, according to the radio.<\/p>\n
On 22 March of last year, three suicide bombers mounted twin attacks on the city’s Zaventem airport and Maelbeek underground station.<\/p>\n
Along with the dead, more than 300 people were injured.<\/p>\n
Two other European capitals, Paris and London, were shaken by attacks in recent days:<\/p>\n
Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"