IS claims Belgium attacker 'soldier of caliphate'

The Islamic State (IS) terror group has claimed that the man who killed two police officers and a civilian in the Belgian city of Liege was a "soldier of the caliphate".

In a brief communique released on the Telegram social platform on Wednesday, the IS media wing Amaq said that the attack on Tuesday was perpetrated in response to the calls to attack the countries in the US-led international coalition fighting the IS in Syria and Iraq, reports Efe news.

Belgian prosecutors confirmed on Wednesday that initial aspects of the investigation point to an IS terrorist attack.

"The elements that make us think this is the modus operandi, which is the same as that which the IS shows in some videos, the fact that the subject shouted 'God is great' during the attack and that he had been "in contact with radicalised people"," said the prosecutors.

The suspect was killed by police and later identified as 31-year-old Benjamin Herman, a Belgian born, who had been imprisoned for minor crimes and had left the Marche-en-Famenne prison on a 36-hour furlough.

Herman attacked two municipal policewomen, ages 45 and 53, with a knife from behind and killed them with their own guns as they lay on the ground.

Then, he went into a nearby cafe but didn't see anyone inside and later opened fire on a vehicle killing a 22-year-old man before barricading himself inside a school, where the police ultimately killed him in a shootout.

This is not the first time that attackers inspired by the ideology of the IS have carried out attacks of this kind in Western countries participating in the military alliance headed by Washington, which has been bombarding and otherwise fighting the jihadis since 2014.

--IANS

and/ksk