Brussels bombing suspect confirms ISIS were planning ‘car bomb attack’ during Euro 2016
BRUSSELS attack suspect Mohamed Abrini confirmed that the Islamic State (ISIS) cell behind the Paris and Brussels attacks had planned a large-scale attack in France during the Euro 2016 football championships.
French website France Inter claim Mr Abrini, “the man in the hat” captured on CCTV moments before the Brussels airport bombing, told interrogators last year that the cell had planned a bloody “car bomb” attack.
“I heard that the plan was to detonate a car or a truck packed with explosives,” Mr Abrini told anti-terrorist judges during a hearing that took place in August last year.
Investigators have since corroborated the claims, France Inter said, and can now “confirm” that ISIS had planned to carry out an assault during Euro 2016.
The jihadist added that the arrest of Paris attack suspect Salah Abdeslam – his childhood friend – on March 18 last year had thrown a spanner in the works and forced the cell to abandon their plans to target the football championships.
Belgian police release new footage of ‘man in the hat’
I heard that the plan was to detonate a car or a truck packed with explosives
The ISIS cell decided to bomb Brussels airport and one of the Belgian capital’s train stations – another terror plot in the works – “earlier than planned” out of fear police was on their tail and that the elaborate plot would be thwarted.
On March 22, 2016, four days after Mr Abdeslam’s arrest, suicide bombers struck at Brussels airport and at a metro station, killing 32 people.
Mr Abrini added that he and Mr Abdeslam had both been “against” the Paris and Brussels attacks and that ISIS jihadists were under huge pressure to avoid police detection and had been ordered to fight until their last breath.
The ISIS militant is also under formal investigation in France over the Paris November 2015 terrorist attacks.
He was spotted with Mr Abdeslam days before the attacks, and his fingerprints and DNA were found in a car used during the massacre, which left 130 dead and hundreds wounded.