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Belgium terror attack: Cops shoot ‘ISIS’ gunman Abdesalem L DEAD after night on the run over murder of two football fans
TERROR cops have shot dead a suspected extremist accused of killing two men near a football stadium in Brussels.
Feared ISIS fanatic Abdesalem Lassoued, 45, went on the run for hours following Monday night's horror rampage before police tracked him down to a cafe and gunned him down.
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He disappeared into the night after two victims - both wearing Sweden football shirts - were killed moments before their team's Euro 2024 qualifier match against Belgium.
Footage showed Lassoued dressed in a fluorescent orange jacket and wielding a gun as he rode a motorbike through the city.
Lassoued - who was Tunisian and believed to be linked to ISIS - was on the run around 12 hours after the killings three miles from Brussels' King Baudouin Stadium.
And this morning Belgian authorities confirmed cops hunting him had shot a suspect in a cafe in the Schaerbeek neighbourhood of Brussels.
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An ambulance was seen leaving the scene before prosecutors confirmed he had died, while the scooter Lassoued used was towed away.
Interior Minister Annelis Verlinden told broadcaster VRT an automatic rifle found by the suspect was the same weapon used in Monday's horror attack.
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said at a news conference just before dawn: "Last night, three people left for what was supposed to be a wonderful soccer party.
"Two of them lost their lives in a brutal terrorist attack. Their lives were cut short in full flight, cut down by extreme brutality."
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Brussels last night raised its terror alert to the highest level amid heightened fears of terror attacks across Europe.
In a clip filmed moments before the gun horror last night, the alleged attacker claimed he was part of terrorist group the Islamic State.
Speaking in Arabic, he claimed responsibility for the shooting and outlines what appears to be a terrorist manifesto.
Federal prosecutors said the gunman claimed to be inspired by ISIS after he used the name Slayem Slouma to post a "revenge" message on Facebook.
Police sources also told social media accounts linked to the suspect showed an interest in anti-Muslim conspiracy theories about Sweden.
Qurans have been burned in Sweden in recent months - leading to protests in Muslim countries.
A spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor’s office said: “The Swedish nationality of the victims is mentioned as a probable motivation for the act."
The suspect had also shared a message on Facebook referring to the murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian boy who was killed in an anti-Muslim attack in the US.
Authorities said he had been living in Belgium illegally and was known to police.
Close to the scene of the shooting, the Belgium-Sweden football clash was halted at halftime and 35,000 fans were barricaded in the stadium as the attacker was at large.
By 11pm the evacuation began with Belgium fans leaving first before 700 Swedes in attendance were escorted away by the police.
Pictures show tearful Swedish fans phoning relatives and removing their jerseys.
A second video shared online shows the alleged gunman in a fluorescent orange jacket arriving on a moped just three miles from the Heizel stadium.
The alleged shooter then chases several people into a building while firing shots from an automatic rifle.
It is believed he first shot at a van, with one victim dying inside.
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Meanwhile, a third victim was rushed to hospital with "severe injuries".
The terror threat level for the Brussels Capital Region was rasied to level 4 - with officials telling locals to "avoid unnecessary movements".
Regions are placed under level four "when the threat is serious and very imminent".
Belgian prosecutors said overnight that nothing suggested the attack was linked to the latest war between Israel and Hamas.
Photos show a small gun left behind at the scene.
One witness told HBVL: "There was soon a crowd, including the police.
"I saw the victim less than five meters away from me. A man about 40 years old.
"And then a black Mercedes Vito with two or three bullet holes in it.
"Inside was the driver dead. The injured passenger, half his body filled with blood, but conscious."
Belgium has suffered a series of terrorist attacks in recent years – all of them related to Islamist extremist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Eight men have just been tried for their connections to the 2016 suicide bombings that killed 32 people and wounded hundreds at Brussels airport and a subway station.
In September, a Brussels court handed out sentences ranging up to life in prison to eight men for the bombings.
French citizen Salah Abdeslam and Belgian-Moroccan Mohamed Abrini – already sentenced to life in jail by France for the November 2015 massacre in Paris – were the highest-profile of six defendants found guilty of murder in July.
Abrini, who was one of the intended bombers but decided not to blow himself up at the last moment, was given a 30-year jail term.
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The court ruled not to give Abdeslam an additional term after he was sentenced in Belgium to 20 years in 2018 over a shootout.
The attacks – near the headquarters of both NATO and the EU – were part of a wave of attacks claimed by the Islamic State group in Europe.
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