Belgian police captured a suspect carrying what a broadcaster said was a suitcase full of explosives on Friday, after shooting him in the leg at Meiser tram stop on the Rogierlaan during a major police operation following Tuesday's suicide bombings in Brussels. The federal prosecutor's office said the arrest was one of three in the northern Brussels borough of Schaerbeek on Friday linked to the arrest in Paris the previous night of Reda Kriket, 34, suspected of plotting a new attack. The prosecutor did not identify the person. However, a Belgian government official described the person as a man and a "big fish." Video from the scene showed the man lying on his side, shattered glass from the tram shelter smashed by bullets at his feet. A bomb squad robot approached the wounded man, checking for explosives. Witnesses told local media police had shot the man in the leg after he twice refused a request from police to show them the contents of his rucksack. One witness told RTBF the man had a girl of about eight with him. "I heard two explosions, they were shooting. I opened the window and saw a man lying near the tram stop. The police ordered him to show his hands, remove his jacket. They said that if he did not comply, they would use their weapons," a witness who lives nearby told La Libre newspaper. One of the detained men was identified by the prosecutor as Tawfik A. The other man was identified as Salah A. La Libre said a large part of the Schaerbeek neighborhood had been been sealed off and that heavily armed security forces and officers in armored vehicles had surrounded the area. During a series of raids in Schaerbeek following Tuesday's deadly bomb blasts in the city, police found 15 kilos of high explosives, bomb-making chemicals and an Islamic State (IS) group flag. Nine people in total were arrested since Thursday in Belgium and two in Germany, as European authorities have swooped on militants they link both to the Brussels attacks that killed 31 people and to attacks in Paris last November that killed 130. Germany's Der Spiegel magazine said German police had arrested two people, one of whom had received phone messages with the name of the metro station bomber and the word "fin" — French for "end" — three minutes before the metro blast. The German interior ministry declined immediate comment. A person familiar with the investigation in Belgium said one of the people arrested there was believed to be a suspected accomplice caught on security camera footage with the metro station bomber. "We have strong indications that this is the suspect who was hunted for the last couple of days. The identification is still ongoing," the source said. However he said those arrested before midday on Friday did not include a third suspect seen on video alongside the two who blew themselves up at the airport. -Officer ‘blundered' over extradition of bomber- Interior Minister Jan Jambon (Flemish nationalist) said a police liaison officer "blundered" over the extradition of Brussels airport bomber Ibrahim El Bakraou. Speaking at a joint meeting of the Justice, Interior and Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the Federal Parliament, the Interior Minister Jan Jambon (Flemish nationalist) said: "Someone within the police was at the very least negligent and not very pro-active in a case where you immediately get the feeling that it involves terrorism." On Wednesday evening, Jambon drafted a timeline of Ibrahim's extradition from Turkey. According to the timeline, the liaison officer did "next to nothing" between 20 June 2015, when he learned of Ibrahim's arrest, and 14 July 2015 when he was put on a plane to the Netherlands. "I can't reach another conclusion that one individual and not an entire service or the bosses thereof was negligent, not very pro-active or committed", Jambon said. "El Bakraoui had been sentenced to ten years. Served a couple of years in prison before travelling via Turkey to the Syrian border. You don't have to be an expert in terrorism to realize how big the chance is that he was a foreign fighter." Jambon added that as minister of the interior and ultimately responsible for the police, he should take political responsibility for what had happened. "Here one person within the police apparatus blundered. Based on this, I offered the Prime Minister my resignation. After a long conversation, the Prime Minister ask me to consider withdrawing my resignation." Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan disclosed on March 23 that Turkey had warned Belgium about Ibrahim's dangerous nature and suspected jihadist tendencies when he was expelled from Turkey in summer 2015, bound for the Netherlands. Erdogan said Belgium and the Netherlands had not taken the threat seriously. Ibrahim was known to Belgian judicial authorities and had been sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2010 on charges of robbery and firing at police. He was later released on bail against the advice of the prison service.
