Raids, explosions and a manhunt: Where the Brussels investigation stands
Additional reporting by Mashable.
Police raided Brussels neighborhoods again Friday in an operation a local official said was linked to both the airport and subway bombings and to the arrest in the Paris suburbs of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France.
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Witnesses reported hearing gunshots and at least three explosions.
Three people were detained, with two of them shot in the leg, the federal prosecutor's office said.
Dramatic videos showed one of the men lying injured at a bus stop as police swarmed and took him away.
The widening manhunt
A manhunt has been underway since Tuesday for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled the scene.
Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.
Two brothers, Khalid El Bakraoui, 27, and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, 29, were named by the Belgian prosecutor's office in the bombing.
The younger brother died in the metro blast, and the older brother as a suicide bomber at the airport.
Officials also identified Najim Laachraoui as the second suicide bomber at Brussels Airport.
Linking him to November's Paris attacks, they also said his DNA was found on an explosive belt at the Bataclan concert hall and a device left near the Stade du France.
A third man seen on surveillance video remains at large. There have also been reports of a second bomber on the metro, though those have not been confirmed.
If they are true, however, it would mean there were five total attackers and two of them remain unidentified.
Belgian prosecutors said raids Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighborhood, where police had earlier found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by theBrussels attackers. Three of six people detained in those raids have been released, prosecutors said.
French counterterrorism police also detained a 34-year-old man Thursday who officials say was in the advanced stages of an attack plot. The suspect, Reda Kriket, had a past Belgian terrorism conviction and was linked to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, officials told The Associated Press.
Suspicious text messages in Germany
German prosecutors say they're investigating whether a Moroccan man detained in central Germany has any connection to the Brussels attacks.
Prosecutors in Giessen said Friday the 28-year-old, whom they didn't identify, was picked up early Thursday because he didn't have valid ID. They said they found documents indicating that he had been in the Brussels area recently and seized a cellphone that they are now evaluating.
Der Spiegel magazine and two public broadcasters are saying the man received two suspicious text messages on the day of the Brussels attacks.
Videos leave the country's nuclear industry on edge
Elsewhere, Belgium's nuclear agency said it has withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and denied access to other people recently amid concern the country's nuclear plants could be a target for extremists.
The move at some plants "is not necessarily linked with the terrorist attacks," said nuclear control agency spokeswoman Nele Scheerlinck, noting the decision to deny access usually takes weeks.
Last month, authorities said searches in the wake of the Paris attacks uncovered video linked to a person working in Belgium's nuclear industry.
Belgian media reported this week that Brussels attackers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui had video recordings of the home of a senior official at the Mol nuclear waste facility in the Flanders region. It's unclear why.
Muslim leaders denounce the attacks
In a sermon before Friday prayers in the neighborhood of Molenbeek, home to some of the participants in the Paris attacks, Sheik Mohamed Tojgani denounced the Brussels bombers.
"Terrorism is terrorism," said Tojgani, the imam of Molenbeek's main mosque. "It has no state, no nationality, no religion, no country."
In a message to the Belgian people, he added: "You are from us and we are from you. What affects you, affects us."
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