Belgian lawmakers probe failure to avert Brussels attacks

Belgian lawmakers vowed today to probe how Belgium failed to thwart the Brussels bombings months after attacks in Paris, as they visited a targeted metro station before it reopens next week.
The parliament's commission of inquiry visited the two scenes of last month's attacks -- Maalbeek station and Brussels Airport -- as part of a mission to shed light by year-end on the attacks in both capitals that were allegedly carried out by the same Islamic State cell.
The panel wants to find out "the way in which Belgium had prepared since the (November) Paris attacks to try to avoid the same tragedy," panel member Laurette Onkelex said.

It must "shed light eventually on responsibilities, but also make recommendations and improve our security architecture," Onkelex said.
Brussels public transport service spokeswoman Francoise Ledune told AFP that Maelbeek station will resume service Monday from 6:00 am until 10:00 pm, like the rest of the network which is still closing two hours earlier than previously.
Maelbeek station has been closed since Khalid El-Bakraoui detonated a bomb at 9:11 am on March 22 that killed 16 people on a train, part of coordinated suicide attacks that hit the airport in Zaventem neighbourhood just over an hour earlier.

A total of 32 people died in the bombings and hundreds more were wounded.

One of the station's eight tiled portraits by artist Benoit van Innis remains damaged and will be covered up. The same artist is now working on a project to commemorate the massacre that is due to be completed in June, Ledune said.
"In the meantime, we plan to set aside a remembrance wall where people can leave messages, words of hope," she added.
Officials quoted by the media said trains resumed service on Friday to Brussels airport, which the authorities had halted because of the damaged terminal.
Brussels airport is set to resume full operations in June after it was closed to passengers for 12 days following the attack and then began gradually to restore service.

The parliamentary commission met airport staff during their visit today. "It was very moving. Some were in tears," centrist politician Georges Dallemagne said.