Suicide note found as it is revealed Islamic State terrorist was released by Belgium to become Brussels bomber
Just moments before Brussels airport bomber Ibrahim El Bakraoui detonated a deadly explosive package, he dumped a major clue into a nearby bin.
Belgium's federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw says Ibrahim, who blew himself up at Zaventem Airport on Tuesday, left a will on a computer that offered some insight into the motive behind his despairing decision to take part in the attacks that killed at least 31 people and left more than 200 injured.
"Always on the run, not knowing what to do anymore, being looked for everywhere, not being safe any longer and that if he waits around any longer he risks ending up next to the person in a cell," the prosecutor quoted Ibrahim's will as saying.
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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says Ibrahim was deported last year from Turkey, and Belgium subsequently ignored a warning that the man was a militant.
Erdogan said Bakraoui was detained in the southern Turkish province of Gaziantep near the Syrian border and was later deported to the Netherlands.
"One of the attackers in Brussels is an individual we detained in Gaziantep in June 2015 and deported," Erdogan said at a news conference overnight.
"We reported the deportation to the Belgian Embassy in Ankara on July 14, 2015, but he was later set free.
"Belgium ignored our warning that this person is a foreign fighter."
Ibrahim would be later released by Belgian authorities after "no links with terrorism" were found.
It has been revealed that Ibrahim's brother Khalid blew himself up on a carriage of the Brussels metro at Maelbeek station.
Khalid and Ibrahim had been involved in organised crime, but had so far not been linked to terrorist activities, Belgian broadcaster RTBF said, quoting unnamed police sources.
Khalid, under a false name, had rented the flat in the Forest borough of the Belgian capital where police killed a gunman in a raid last week, RTBF said.
Investigators found after that raid an Islamic State flag, an assault rifle, detonators and a fingerprint of Abdeslam's, who was arrested three days later.
At a raid in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek on Tuesday night police found 15kg of explosives, 150 litres of acetone, 30 litres of oxygenated water, detonators, a suitcase filled with screws and nails as well as materials, such as plastic boxes, needed to pack up the explosives.
An arrest in connection with the terror attack has reportedly been made in the Anderlecht suburb of Brussels, but local media reports that key suspect Najim Laachraoui had been detained were later withdrawn.
The 25-year-old, who has been linked to the atrocities in Paris five months ago, is believed to have accompanied brothers Khalid and Ibrahim to Zaventem Airport on Tuesday.
Bomb-maker Laachraoui is also suspected of having played a "decisive role" in the Paris terror attacks, French media has reported.
He is also suspected of being responsible for the bombs used in the Paris massacre in November after his DNA was found on suicide belts used in the Bataclan Theatre and the Stade de France, and he had travelled to Hungary in September with Paris attacks prime suspect Salah Abdeslam.
Belgium 'shamefully' mocked for security failings
Belgium's approach to immigration and security has now come under fire after the Brussels bombings, but some say the country is being unfairly singled out and the timing of the criticism is crass.
Among the more bizarre statements was that of Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz.
"If in Belgium they continue to eat chocolate, enjoy life and parade as great liberals and democrats while not taking account of the fact that some of the Muslims who are there are organising acts of terror, they will not be able to fight against them," Katz told Israeli radio.
But it was criticism closer to home that triggered particular outrage, after French Finance Minister Michel Sapin accused Brussels of "naivety" over the spread of Islamist extremism in their country.
"I think there was... a lack of will, on the part of some (Belgian) authorities... perhaps also a kind of naivety," Sapin said on Tuesday, suggesting they "thought that to encourage good integration, communities should be left to develop on their own".
Speaking to French TV station LCI, he added: "We know... that this is not the right answer. When a neighbourhood is in danger of becoming sectarian, we should (implement) a policy of integration."
Belgium has faced much criticism over its security failings, particularly in the wake of November's Paris attacks that were largely planned in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, considered a hotbed of Islamist radicalism.
But the timing of Sapin's comments, just hours after the bombings at the Brussels airport and metro station, was considered highly inappropriate.
"It is indecent when people are suffering, are in shock. We need solidarity, not lectures," said Belgian Socialist politician Laurette Onkelinx.
A member of Sapin's own French Socialist party, Francois Lamy, described the finance minister's statement as "just shameful".
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also sought to distance himself from his colleague's words, saying he did not want "to lecture our Belgian friends".
"We closed our eyes, everywhere in Europe and including France, to the rise of extremist Salafist ideas in neighbourhoods where a mix of drug trafficking and radical Islam have led astray... some of the youth," Valls told Europe 1 radio.
Despite all this, experts have warned against singling out Belgium for criticism.
"I'd caution against focusing too much on Belgium and blaming them," said Thomas Hegghammer, a terrorism expert at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.
"This is about networks and where they are strong. Today, it happens to be in Belgium, but a similar situation could be replicated elsewhere," he said.
Hegghammer noted that savvy militants were increasingly skilled at flying under the radar by using encrypted communications -- and that this could happen in other countries.
Belgium's ambassador to Britain, Guy Trouveroy, said it was "not entirely right" to suggest some areas of his country had been abandoned by the authorities.
"It is always easy afterwards to say 'We should have, we should have'," Trouveroy told the BBC.
"At the time, the threats were not there and this Syria issue is relatively new. We had to move up to the challenge and we went maybe pace-by-pace, haphazardly. It is not easy.
"These are professionals and they know how to put up commando operations."
'Life goes on' after Belgium's worst-ever attacks
Barely 24 hours after Belgium's worst-ever terror attacks, underground metro services resumed in the capital as life began to return to normal.
"Off we go! Life goes on!" said a Brussels subway driver, slamming the cabin door and pulling away from the station.
Part of the line where a suicide bomber killed around 20 passengers Tuesday remained closed, but most trains, trams and buses ran to schedule -- even if some commuters seemed reluctant to use public transport.
"I'm a bit afraid, especially for my little brothers," said Dominique Salazar, 18, as he took his siblings, aged three and six, to school. "But we don't have any other choice to get around."
Soldiers checked passenger bags at entrances to the subway stations in Europe's symbolic capital, where some entry points had been closed to enable tighter security.
The usual morning rush hour crowds on underground train platforms were noticeably thinner, however, and there were fewer cyclists on the streets above.
At Schuman metro station at the foot of the European Union's headquarters and just one station from the Maalbeek stop where the attack took place, travellers seemed more confused by changes to the usual schedule than fearful.
One passenger who stepped onto a train and then off again, asking: "Where's that one headed?"
"I haven't yet fully realised what's happening, I'm still stuck in my daily problems, but perhaps it's better that way," said Pierre Pardon, a social worker.
But he said fear was at the back of everyone's minds.
"Obviously! We heard that the son of one of my wife's colleagues died during the night. I myself was only 20 minutes away from the Maalbeek attack," said Pardon, 43.
"I guess my time hadn't yet come."
A 40-year-old secretary who gave her name only as Valerie said she had no time to worry. "I'm too busy figuring what's working and what's not, what stations are open, what trains are running," she said.
"And I don't want to be paranoid. People here are looking out for our security," she added, pointing to the three soldiers armed with assault rifles on patrol nearby.
Brussels airport closed to passengers until at least Saturday
Brussels airport will remain closed until at least Saturday, a spokeswoman said.
"The airport is closed to passengers until Friday included," spokeswoman Anke Fransen told AFP, a day after the attacks by two suicide bombers that wrecked the departure hall.
"We cannot say for certain if the flights will be reopened to passengers on Saturday," she said, adding however that cargo and private flights could resume "as of now".
