Anti-Arab demonstrators disrupt a rally at the site of the memorial for the victims of the March 22 terror attacks in Brussels on Sunday, March 27, 2016. Riot squads had to be called in to disperse the demonstrators after clashes with the police began.OLIVIER HOSLET
Brussels memorial clashes
A scene of peaceful commemoration suddenly turned aggressive on Sunday when more than 300 hooligans and far-right protesters, clad in black and wearing balaclavas, disrupted a memorial for the victims of the Brussels airport and subway bombings.
They trampled over flowers and hand-written messages, and confronted mourners – some of them families with children – who had gathered in the central Brussels square.
"We are all here today for peace, and for the brotherhood among peoples. Not for right-wing ideas. It's neither the time nor the place," said Theophile Mouange, who was there to pay his respects.
The protesters displayed Nazi salutes, lit flares and chanted "Death to Arabs," according to reports. In extraordinary scenes around Place de la Bourse, riot police stood between mourners and protesters – and eventually pushed the protesters back using water cannons. Ten people were arrested.
It is exactly the kind of civil strife the Belgian authorities were hoping to avoid, as the country comes to grips with its own radicalized citizens carrying out deadly attacks.
The Prime Minister and the city's mayor condemned the protests. "I am appalled at what has happened, to see that such scoundrels come here to provoke people at their place of homage," Mayor Yvan Mayeur said.
Earlier, a unity march on Sunday meant to show solidarity in the face of growing fears following last Tuesday's bombings was called off at the request of Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon, who worried that the country's security forces and police were already stretched by a growing anti-terrorism investigation and would not be able to manage large crowds in the capital's centre.
The third man
Belgian security forces have been racing to identify the names of the airport and subway attackers – and the network of people who assisted them in carrying out the deadly bombings.
Two of the three suicide bombers in the grainy airport security camera photo have been identified by police. But the mystery of the man in the dark hat and light-coloured jacket continues. Authorities say the suspect fled the airport after his suitcase bomb failed to detonate.
On Saturday, Belgian prosecutors announced they had charged three men in the Brussels attacks. They identified one of them as Faycal C. Belgian media, citing people close to the investigation, are reporting that the man arrested is Faycal Cheffou, who is believed to have promoted extremist views in the past and is suspected of being the man in the hat in the photo.
Mr. Cheffou spent time in prison in 2003 for criminal association and complicity to murder. A video from two years ago showed him outside an asylum centre northeast of Brussels complaining that Muslims inside were prevented from fasting during Ramadan, according to Reuters.
The mayor of Brussels also told the media that he is "dangerous" and had been banned from visiting a park after repeatedly trying to get asylum seekers camped there to adopt radical extremist views. But no security official has confirmed that Mr. Cheffou is, in fact, the man who has been detained – and the subject of a manhunt.
Police bust fake ID ring
As police carried out raids in Belgium on Sunday, investigators are trying to determine whether there is a link between a false ID network and the Brussels attackers who provided assumed names to rent apartments used to plot the attacks and build bombs.
In Italy, police announced that they had detained an Algerian man who is the subject of a Belgian arrest warrant. Djamal Eddine Ouali is wanted in connection with a crime ring that created false ID documents supplied to the terrorists involved in last November's Paris attacks that killed 130 and injured more than 350.
Meanwhile, Najim Laachroui, the second suicide bomber in the Brussels airport attack, returned to Belgium last year after spending more than two years in Syria as part of the Islamic State militant group. A Mercedes car he was travelling in was stopped at the Austria-Hungary border in September, 2015. His ID documents showed his false name: Soufiane Kayal.
He became an explosives expert and is thought to have built the devices fitted on the suicide attackers who stormed a concert hall and soccer stadium in Paris on Nov. 13.
Belgian government under pressure
Belgian authorities are under increasing pressure to explain how the Brussels attackers were not stopped before they could carry out the bombings.
Before being deported to the Netherlands last year, Ibrahim El Bakraoui was detained near the Syrian border by Turkish authorities, who then flagged him to Belgian officials as a terrorist risk.
Paris suicide bomber Salah Abdeslam was on the run for four months before being arrested earlier this month in Brussels. There are questions about whether he was interrogated long enough by security officials to yield important information about a broader network of would-be attackers that included the Brussels bombers.
On Sunday, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon admitted that mistakes had been made, and that $670-million provided to police and security services in the past two years could not overcome a decades-long decline in how security forces respond to violent extremism.
He also said it was time to train new anti-terrorism forces and that the results of the government's investments would not be instant.