'Could have been much worse'
Belgium yesterday said a Moroccan man carried out a foiled terrorist attack with a nail bomb at a busy Brussels train station, the latest in a wave of attacks to hit Europe.
The 36-year-old man, identified only as O.Z, shouted "Allahu Akbar" and tried to detonate a suitcase in a group of passengers at Brussels Central station before a soldier shot him dead on Tuesday.
The suspect, from the largely immigrant Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek which has been linked to a number of previous attacks, was not known to police for terrorism offences. No one was injured in the attack.
"It could have been much worse," Belgian federal prosecutor's spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told a news conference. "It is clear that he wanted to cause more damage than he did."
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said a "terrorist attack has been prevented" in the city that hosts the EU and Nato headquarters.
But he said that while security would be stepped up, the country's terror alert level would be kept stable.
The blast came a day after a man mowed down Muslims near a mosque in London, and a suspected Islamist on a terror watchlist rammed a car laden with weapons into a police vehicle in Paris.
Brussels has been on high alert since suicide bombers struck Zavantem Airport and the Maalbeek metro station near the EU quarter in March 2016, killing 32 people and injuring hundreds more.
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