BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - As the Belgian men's national soccer team was hosting Sweden in a European Championship qualifier match on Monday night, three Swedish fans climbed out of a cab to go into the game.
Instead of stepping out to hear the cheers coming from inside, they were greeted with the sounds of shots being fired at them.
In an amateur video shared on the social media platform X, a man can be seen pursuing those individuals into a building lobby where he shot them. The footage shows what appears to be a body falling to the floor in the lobby.
Warning: parts of the video may be graphic to some readers.
Two of the three victims died as a result.
The game was halted and the 35,000 plus spectators were held inside the stadium as a precaution as police sought the alleged shooter. He was found sitting in a coffee shop several hours later.
Once police made contact, a shootout started, with the Belgian police shooting and killing the suspect, who was identified as 45-year-old Abdesalem Lassoued. He was a Tunisian in the country illegally.
According to the Associated Press, police say that he posted a video online taking credit for the murders and stating that "the Quran is a red line for which he was ready to sacrifice himself for."
Investigators are still searching for the motive behind the killings of two men in their sixties and seventies respectively. The third man, also in his seventies, remains hospitalized.
In a series of posts written in Dutch and French, Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden provided an update via X.
"Terrible shooting in Brussels. The perpetrator has been tracked down. Our condolences go out to the victims and their relatives."
The Swedish Prime Minister said that they shooter had ties to Sweden.
“Everything indicates this is a terrorist attack against Sweden and Swedish citizens, just because they are Swedish,” PM Ulf Kristersson said in a press conference.
“It does not seem at the stage of the investigation that the terrorist attack was organized by a large terror network,” Belgian federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said. “The hypothesis that he was acting as a lone wolf seems more likely.”
The murders were carried out using an AR-15 style rifle. Police also found handguns and a knife near Lassoued’s residence.
Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said that the Tunisian man had been denied asylum in 2019, and “was known to police and had been suspected of involvement of human trafficking, living illegally in Belgium and of being a risk to state security.”
He disappeared after the denial and authorities were unable to locate him to facilitate his deportation.
He is alleged to have lived in Sweden from 2012-2014 and spent part of that time in prison before being sent to another EU country. It was not revealed what crimes he was convicted of or which country he went to.
Belgian authorities claim to have been told by an unidentified foreign government that the man had been radicalized and intended to travel abroad to fight in a holy war, but they were unable to substantiate that information.
Instead of stepping out to hear the cheers coming from inside, they were greeted with the sounds of shots being fired at them.
In an amateur video shared on the social media platform X, a man can be seen pursuing those individuals into a building lobby where he shot them. The footage shows what appears to be a body falling to the floor in the lobby.
Warning: parts of the video may be graphic to some readers.
Two of the three victims died as a result.
The game was halted and the 35,000 plus spectators were held inside the stadium as a precaution as police sought the alleged shooter. He was found sitting in a coffee shop several hours later.
Once police made contact, a shootout started, with the Belgian police shooting and killing the suspect, who was identified as 45-year-old Abdesalem Lassoued. He was a Tunisian in the country illegally.
According to the Associated Press, police say that he posted a video online taking credit for the murders and stating that "the Quran is a red line for which he was ready to sacrifice himself for."
Investigators are still searching for the motive behind the killings of two men in their sixties and seventies respectively. The third man, also in his seventies, remains hospitalized.
In a series of posts written in Dutch and French, Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden provided an update via X.
"Terrible shooting in Brussels. The perpetrator has been tracked down. Our condolences go out to the victims and their relatives."
The Swedish Prime Minister said that they shooter had ties to Sweden.
“Everything indicates this is a terrorist attack against Sweden and Swedish citizens, just because they are Swedish,” PM Ulf Kristersson said in a press conference.
“It does not seem at the stage of the investigation that the terrorist attack was organized by a large terror network,” Belgian federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said. “The hypothesis that he was acting as a lone wolf seems more likely.”
The murders were carried out using an AR-15 style rifle. Police also found handguns and a knife near Lassoued’s residence.
Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said that the Tunisian man had been denied asylum in 2019, and “was known to police and had been suspected of involvement of human trafficking, living illegally in Belgium and of being a risk to state security.”
He disappeared after the denial and authorities were unable to locate him to facilitate his deportation.
He is alleged to have lived in Sweden from 2012-2014 and spent part of that time in prison before being sent to another EU country. It was not revealed what crimes he was convicted of or which country he went to.
Belgian authorities claim to have been told by an unidentified foreign government that the man had been radicalized and intended to travel abroad to fight in a holy war, but they were unable to substantiate that information.
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