Prosecutor: Brussels group initially planned to hit France

Prosecutor: Brussels group initially planned to hit France

(Photo: Belgian Federal Police)

A police operation was under way on Saturday in the Brussels district of Etterbeek after Belgian officials confirmed a sixth arrest over suspected links to the March 22 Brussels bombings. Five others were arrested on Friday. (April 9) AP

The group responsible for the deadly bombings in Brussels had initially planned to attack France, Belgium's federal prosecutor said Sunday.

The suspects were "surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation" and decided to attack Brussels instead, the office said in a statement. The alleged organizers of the Brussels attacks were part of the same group behind the Paris massacre in November, federal prosecutors said.

The statements from prosecutors come after the arrest of Mohamed Abrini, who was described as the "man in the hat" or the "man in white." captured on surveillance footage with the two suicide bombers at Brussels Airport, RTBF reported. Abrini and three others were charged with "terrorist murders" and conducting the "activities of a terrorist group" in connection with the Brussels attacks.

Right wing demonstrators protest at a memorial site at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels.

The suicide bombers killed 16 people at Brussels Airport the morning of March 22, and another blast claimed the lives of another 16 at a city subway station.

Abrini confessed he was the "man in the hat" seen in the surveillance footage, Belgian prosecutors said.

The other suspects were identified as Osama Krayem, Herve B. M. and Bilal E. M. Krayem, who is known to have left the Swedish city of Malmo to fight in Syria.

Investigators found links between the group behind Brussels attacks and the one that killed 130 in Paris Nov. 13. Authorities said that a series of raids and arrests leading up to the Brussels attack, notably the arrest of key suspect Salah Abdeslam on March 18, prompted the suspects to change course and speed up the plan.

Anti-Islamic State demonstrators clash with police at Place de la Bourse in Brussels. 

Several connections surfaced involving Abrini. Surveillance footage shows Abrini driving Abdeslam to Paris two days before the deadly rampage. Abdeslam's arrest occurred four days before the Brussels explosions.

Authorities said Abrini grew up with Abdeslam and his brother, Brahim Abdeslam, both suspects in the Paris attacks. They believe he also knew Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the Paris attackers' ringleader.

Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up in the Paris bombings. Abbaoud died in a police raid shortly after the attacks.

Abrini's fingerprints and DNA were found in a car used in Paris, as well as an apartment in a Brussels neighborhood that was used by the airport bombers.

Abrini was also believed to have traveled to Syria, where his younger brother died in 2014 in the Islamic State’s Francophone brigade.

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