Brussels, Belgium (Reuters): Belgian soldiers shot dead a man in the center of Brussels on Friday evening after he came at them with a knife in a case authorities are treating as a terrorist attack.
The man, a 30-year-old Belgian of Somali origin, died after being rushed to hospital. The soldiers were not seriously hurt in the attack; one had a facial wound and the other’s hand was wounded.
Prosecutors said the man, who was not known for terrorist activities, had attacked around 8:15 p.m. local time (1815 GMT) just outside the city’s central pedestrian zone while the soldiers were on patrol.
The case passed from local to federal prosecutors, who typically handle terrorist cases. A spokeswoman for the prosecution service said they were treating the case as one of attempted terrorist murder.
Brussels mayor Philip Close said the alert status, already just one off the maximum level, had not been increased.
Soldiers routinely patrol the streets of the Belgian capital due to a heightened security alert level after Islamist shooting and bomb attacks in Paris in 2015 and Brussels in 2016.