Brussels attack: Police identify attackers as Bakraoui brothers

Brussels, Mar 23: A day after Belgian police officials released a CCTV image of three suspects in the twin explosions at the Zaventem airport here, police officials identified two brothers as suspected bombers.

Once the image was released by the police officials, a massive manhunt was launched to nab them. On Wednesday, Belgian state broadcaster RTBF, identified two attackers as brothers Khalid and Brahim El Bakraoui.

The third man has still not been identified. The brothers were known to police officials for their crimes in the past but nothing was related to terrorism.

RTBF says Khalid El Bakraoui had rented an apartment which was raided by police last week in an operation that led authorities to top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam.

Meanwhile, Zaventem mayor Francis Vermeiren on Tuesday said that the attackers who struck the airport had the explosives in their luggage bag.

"They put their suitcases on trolleys, the first two bombs exploded. The third also put his on a trolley but he must have panicked, it didn't explode," he added.

The airport and all the metro stations remained closed on Wednesday and security threat level was raised to the highest after the attacks.

Brother attackers behind Boston bombings, Charlie Hebdo

While Belgian police officers have identified two suspects as brothers, this throws light to earlier attacks in Boston and Paris where brothers had carried out terror attacks.

In Boston Marathon bombings, two Chechen brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were identified as suspectswhen two pressure cooker bombs went off during the Boston marathon.

While Tamerlan died in a gunfight with officials, Dzokhar was found guilty and was sentenced to death.

On the other hand, the famous Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015 was carried out by two brothers , Said and Cherif Kouachi. Both the brothers attacked the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo's office on Jan 7 last year killing 11 people and injuring many.

Both the Kouachi brothers were gunned down in a siege that was laucnhed after the attack.

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