said on X<\/a> on Monday, referring to the Swedish prime minister. \u201cOur thoughts are with the families and friends who lost their loved ones. As close partners the fight against terrorism is a joint one.\u201d<\/p>\nThe victims were wearing Sweden soccer shirts and may have been preparing to attend the game at a stadium in northern Brussels. The game was suspended after the shooting, but several hours passed before fans at the stadium were allowed to leave.<\/p>\n
An unverified video of the attack circulating on social media showed a man in a white helmet and a high-visibility orange jacket pursuing and shooting at his victims, who ran into a building, and then shooting them again at closer range.<\/p>\n
Another unverified video circulating on social media, shot in selfie mode, showed a man in a jacket very similar to the one worn by the gunman in the other video, speaking in Arabic and describing himself as an adherent of the Islamic State.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there has been a claim via social media where someone says he is the perpetrator, that he has sympathies for I.S., and what is also important, he mentions the Swedish nationality of those victims,\u201d Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor\u2019s office, told the Belgian broadcaster VTM.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cFor now, at the current stage of the investigation, there would be no relationship to the conflict in Gaza,\u201d Mr. Van Der Sypt added. The bloodshed in Israel and Gaza since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7 has raised concerns in many countries that sympathizers with one side or the other might carry out violent acts.<\/p>\n
Mr. Van Der Sypt, in comments to the news agency Belga, said that a third man, a taxi driver, had been wounded in the attack but was being treated in a hospital and was out of danger.<\/p>\n
The threat level in Brussels was raised after the attack, and France has tightened controls at its border with Belgium, France\u2019s interior minister, G\u00e9rald Darmanin, said.<\/p>\n
While the suspect\u2019s identity was not formally released, Belgian news outlets identified him as Abdesalem Lassoued, a 45-year-old man originally from Tunisia.<\/p>\n
The Belgian authorities\u2019 handling of the man\u2019s activities was coming under closer scrutiny on Tuesday after the acknowledgment that he had been known to the police and even flagged for potential terrorist activity seven years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mr. Van Quickenborne, the justice minister, told a news conference that the authorities had received an alert from a foreign police service in July 2016, claiming that the man was radicalized.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were countless reports like that at the time, dozens of reports of that nature per day,\u201d Mr. Van Quickenborne said. \u201cThat information was then investigated, and nothing further could be done with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the minister said that the suspect had been on the authorities\u2019 radar since that first red flag, for suspicions of human smuggling and for illegally living in Belgium, among other things. In June last year, the minister said, he had been flagged to a special task force for suspicious behavior at a mosque, but that \u201cdid not trigger any further action.\u201d Mr. Van Quickenborne noted.<\/p>\n
This year, the minister added, the suspect was said to have threatened a resident of an asylum center on social media after the resident reported that the suspect had been convicted over terrorist activities in Tunisia.<\/p>\n
The Belgian authorities have also failed to thwart earlier terrorist threats. Several of the Islamic State attackers who carried out the November 2015 attacks in Paris that killed more than 100 people had been based in Belgium and were known to the authorities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n