A threat of explosion hovered over the Stib network, this Wednesday, March 8. The European Commission had received an email the day before, written in Russian, announcing an attack between two stations, Yser and Rogier.
According The evening, the author of the message had sent a first e-mail which did not present a threatening character. It was in a second message that he announced the beginning of a long series of terrorist attacks on the territory of the European Union, in particular, to begin with, in the Brussels metro. The Commission forwarded the contents of the email to police late Tuesday afternoon. The information was widely relayed on social networks, in stride.
A “bomb” in the Brussels metros this Wednesday: info or intox? The National Crisis Center is monitoring the situation
Caution is the mother of safety
Although a little too specific for this kind of threats meant to create a sense of panic, the message was taken very seriously by the authorities. Federal police searched the stations overnight and patrols were stepped up.
On Wednesday afternoon, however, the Coordination Body for Threat Analysis (Ocam) concluded that the threat was “unlikely“. While adding that “ as a precaution, the police services are doubling their vigilance on the Brussels metro network “ .
In any case, Ocam maintained the general threat level at level 2 on a scale of 4, which is equivalent to a so-called medium threat.
The National Crisis Center (NCCN) also announced that it was continuing to closely monitor the situation with the security services. The prosecution has opened an investigation. The British and American embassies have, for their part, alerted their nationals.
Threat of attack in the metro: the European Commission received two emails concerning an “explosion”