FBI warned Netherlands about Bakraoui brothers days before attacks

Dutch police authorities informed their Belgian counterparts of the criminal and extremist background of the Bakraoui brothers on 17 March, five days before the suicide bombings at Brussels Airport and Maalbeek metro station, Dutch justice minister Ard van der Steur has claimed.

A tip from the FBI to Dutch authorities was delivered one day earlier, on 16 March, and, according to van der Steur, concerned “the criminal background of Ibrahim El Bakraoui and the radical and terrorist background of his brother Khalid. On 17 March, this was also discussed in a bilateral contact between Dutch and Belgian police services.”

Ibrahim El Bakraoui (pictured) was one of the two suicide bombers at Brussels Airport. Khalid blew up the metro train in Maalbeek station.

The director-general of Belgium’s judicial police, Claude Fontaine, has denied any such communication. Belgium received no information directly from the FBI, Fontaine said, which the FBI confirmed. “On 17 March, a Dutch colleague visited the federal judicial police. During the visit, various information was given regarding the operation in Vorst on 15 March,” said Fontaine. “During talks, no mention was made of a message the FBI may have sent to Dutch police, as the latter have since confirmed.”

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, meanwhile, said that the FBI had told authorities in his country that, in any case, their information came from Belgium. “The FBI told us,” said Rutte that these men were on the wanted list in Belgium.”

The situation adds to the awkward questions facing federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon, in charge of the police. Jambon already faced questions last week about a warning Turkey said it had transmitted to Belgium about suspected terrorist links in connection with Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who was turned out of Turkey last year after travelling there illegally while on parole in Belgium. Back in Belgium, he was not returned to prison for breaking the conditions of his parole.

Jambon blamed a Belgian police liaison officer in Turkey of not delivering the message.