{"id":27535,"date":"2016-08-08T02:04:35","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T02:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/belgium-machete-attacker-was-algerian-say\/"},"modified":"2016-08-08T02:04:32","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T02:04:32","slug":"belgium-machete-attacker-was-algerian-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/belgium-machete-attacker-was-algerian-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium machete attacker was Algerian, say officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Belgian officials say a man who wounded two policewomen with a machete was a 33-year-old Algerian with a criminal record but no known terror links.}<\/p>\n

An inquiry for “attempted terrorist murder” has been launched into Saturday’s attack in Charleroi.<\/p>\n

The man reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) during the assault outside a police station. He died after being shot by officers.<\/p>\n

On Sunday the so-called Islamic State group called him one of its “soldiers”.
\nThe statement was similar to those released after recent attacks in France and Germany.<\/p>\n

Following standard practice, prosecutors did not name the attacker but gave his initials as KB.<\/p>\n

He had been living in Belgium since 2012 and had minor offences to his name.<\/p>\n

Belgium has been on alert since bomb attacks on the city’s airport and subway system in March killed 32 people.<\/p>\n

Charleroi was used as a base by some of the jihadists involved in that attack, and in the attack on Paris in November 2015.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Charles Michel, who broke off his holiday after the attack, has urged people to remain “constantly vigilant” but “keep a cool head”.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s attack unfolded at just before 16:00 local time (14:00 GMT).<\/p>\n

A police spokesman said the attacker pulled the machete out of a sports bag as he approached a guard post outside the police HQ.<\/p>\n

According to a local news agency, one of the policewomen was treated for serious facial wounds, while the other suffered only minor injuries.<\/p>\n

The assailant was shot and killed by another officer, who was nearby.<\/p>\n

\"Security<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Belgian officials say a man who wounded two policewomen with a machete was a 33-year-old Algerian with a criminal record but no known terror links.} An inquiry for “attempted terrorist murder” has been launched into Saturday’s attack in Charleroi. The man reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) during the assault outside a police station. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27535"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27535"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}