Two policewomen standing guard outside the police station in the Belgian city of Charleroi were wounded by an assailant armed with a machete shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. The attacker was shot in the chest and the leg by a third woman officer. One policewoman suffered severe wounds on the face when he slashed her several times. She is being treated in hospital though her injuries are described as being not life threatening, while her colleague was not injured that much.
The incident happened at 4pm as the attacker arrived at a checkpoint outside the police station. The checkpoint, designed to withstand direct attacks on the police station is however susceptible to close attacks on the officers manning the checkpoint, as the incident demonstrates. Eyewitnesses describe the assailant taking out the machete out of his bag as soon as he arrived and lunged it towards the officer, repeatedly hacking at her head.
The Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, told broadcaster RTL that the attack appeared to be a terrorist incident. A police spokesman said the case was being handled by criminal prosecutors rather than counter-terrorist prosecutors.
The attacker was taken to hospital but later died according to Belgian media.
This incident comes less than five months after bomb blasts killed 32 people in Brussels. 30 miles south of Brussels, Charleroi, was used as the base of a few jihadi’s involved in the Brussels bombings and the Paris attacks last November, leaving 130 people dead.