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Belgium investigate police stabbing as possible terror attack

One officer was stabbed in the neck and another in the stomach. Brussels is on high alert after bombings in March killed 32 people at the city's airport and in a subway carriage.

  • By Robert-Jan Bartunek Reuters

| BRUSSELS

Two police officers were stabbed in Brussels on Wednesday in what prosecutors said could have been a terrorist attack.

Brussels is on high alert after bombings in March killed 32 people at the city's airport and in a subway carriage.

According to public broadcaster VRT, one officer was stabbed in the neck and another in the stomach. The attacker then broke the nose of a third policeman who had arrived on the scene.

The attacker, identified as 43-year-old Belgian Hicham D., was shot in the leg and taken away by ambulance, prosecutors said in a statement, adding that the police officers' wounds were not life-threatening.

"The provisional results of the investigation indicate that it could be a potential terrorist attack," federal prosecutors said without elaborating further. In another statement, prosecutors said they searched one house in Brussels but did not find any firearms or explosions. They did not give more details.

Early on Wednesday afternoon, the city's Gare du Nord railway station was closed for an hour because of a bomb alert. Rail operations resumed after bomb disposal teams had checked the area.

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