Belgium’s Derniere Heure reported that the security officer at an atomic power plant in Charleroi, about 50 kilometers from Brussels, was shot dead on Thursday, two days after attacks at Brussels airport and a metro station killed some 35 people.
“The murder was completely ignored and was committed on Thursday night in the judicial district of Charleroi,” the French-language newspaper said. “A security guard, accompanied by his dog, was shot in the early evening. His badge was stolen,” it said, citing police sources.
Earlier Thursday, the daily had reported that Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, the two brothers who died in the airport suicide bombings, had been planning to target nuclear power stations in Belgium. It said they were pressured into accelerating and changing plans after the arrest of Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam.
The daily said they had been monitoring the movements of the director of Belgium’s nuclear program and that dozens of hours of footage about the official’s movements were found in police raids on accomplices from the same terror cell.
Investigators say that DNA evidence showed the Brussels bombings and the November 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people were linked.
Both attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group.
After the arrest of Abdeslam in Belgium last Friday, the two brothers apparently feared being exposed and hunted down.
Belgian media said that Ibrahim El Bakraoui had left a note on a computer found in a trash can during an anti-terrorist raid, reportedly saying he felt increasingly unsafe and feared arrest and prison.
Dernier Heure quoted investigators as saying that the goal of the attackers had been to “jeapordize national security like never before” in Europe.
According to Belgian media reports, security at Belgium’s nuclear power plants has been fortified, with soldiers guarding the sites.
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via Defense News