BRUSSELS, BELGIUM — Officials say the suspected bombmaker for the Paris attacks was one of the two suicide bombers at Brussels airport.
Prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw identified Brahim El Barkoui as one of the airport suicide bombers and his brother, Khalid El Bakroui, as the man behind the deadly suicide blast near the Maelbeek metro station.
The metro bombing was actually deadliest, killing at least 20 of the 31 total slain in the two Tuesday attacks. Another 271 people were wounded, the prosecutor said.
Still, that could have been different had a third bomb — described as the “heaviest” by Van Leeuw — had gone off at the airport.
The first two explosives at the airport went off within 37 seconds of each other shortly before 8 a.m. Tuesday, according to the prosecutor. The third suspect — the one who is still at large — left another bomb that did not explode around that time. Instead, Van Leeuw said, authorities detonated it in a controlled explosion that did not hurt anyone.
The El Bakraoui brothers were known to police, but for organized crime, not for acts of terrorism, according to state broadcaster RTBF.
It wasn’t immediately clear if one or both of them was in a picture released Tuesday by authorities, showing three men pushing luggage carts through the airport. The subway attack took place about an hour later.
Investigators believe the third man pictured — wearing light-colored clothing and a hat — planted a bomb at the airport, then left in a move that appeared to be planned, two U.S. officials said.
