Two Brussels police officers were stabbed and a train station evacuated in the wake of a telephoned bomb threat Wednesday afternoon, the second to occur within the past 48 hours, according to Belgian authorities.
One of the two officers was listed in serious condition following the attack by a suspected terrorist in the northern Brussels suburb of Schaarbeek. That officer was stabbed in the neck; the second officer was knifed in the stomach. The attacker was shot in the leg and then taken into custody, according to Belgian officials quoted by Flandernews.be.
Meanwhile, just slightly earlier, a bomb threat prompted authorities in northern Brussels to evacuate the Gare du Nord train station on Wednesday, but was later ruled out as a “false alarm.”
The signalling center and the Portalis building were evacuated in addition to the station, following a call from an anonymous tipster, who phoned police at 12:20 pm local time, the UK-based Daily Express newspaper reported.
The station was meticulously searched for explosives, while a number of train lines on the city’s metro system were interrupted as a result of the alert. A Twitter user said on the social networking site that it was the second time this week the northern Brussels station was evacuated for a “bomb alert.”
Two days ago, the same train station was placed on lock-down after a suspicious package was detected in a vehicle near the station.
In addition, a separate bomb threat prompted officials to evacuate the office of the Brussels prosecutor as well, the Libre Belgique daily newspaper reported, quoting police sources.
This past August, a car bomb exploded at about 3 am outside the Brussels Institute of Criminology.
Earlier this year, the Jewish community of Brussels canceled its Purim celebrations after the March 22 horrific twin terrorist attacks on the city’s international airport and its Molenbeek metro station, close to the headquarters of the European Union.
The attack involved three deadly coordinated suicide bombings — two at Zaventem International Airport in Brussels, and one at Maalbeek metro station in central Brussels — killing 32 civilians and wounding more than 300 innocent victims, including two local Jews. Three terrorists were killed. A fourth unexploded bomb was discovered during a sweep of the airport.
The Da’esh (ISIS) terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attack, which was carried out by a members of a larger terrorist cell that had been involved in the massive November 13, 2015 multi-site terror attacks in Paris.