Khālid El Bakraoui

Khālid El Bakraoui (; 12 January 1989 – 22 March 2016), also known as Abū Walīd al-Baljīkī, was a Belgian terrorist of Moroccan descent, confirmed to be the suicide bomber at the metro station in the 2016 Brussels bombings.

Early life El Bakraoui was raised in Laken, a residential district in northwestern Brussels. His brother Ibrahim has been identified as one of two suicide bombers at Brussels Airport.

International warrant of arrest and terrorist activities In August 2015, Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest. Two further arrest warrants were issued for El Bakraoui on 11 December 2015, one international and one European. Both were issued by a Paris judge investigating the November 2015 Paris attacks, because El Bakraoui, using false documents, rented the Charleroi house where fingerprints of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of those attacks, as well as an involved suicide bomber, Bilal Hadfi, were found.

According to a report by the De Morgen daily, Belgian authorities, acting after they learned, in the summer of 2015, of his call on friends to help him obtain as many Kalashnikov chargers as possible, searched El Bakraoui's home in October 2015, found evidence of "calls to jihad" and "images of known terrorists", but found no weapons and therefore did not make an arrest.

On 15 March 2016, El Bakraoui and his brother Ibrahim El Bakraoui evaded capture during a police raid in Brussels. On 16 March 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States sent information about them to authorities in the Netherlands. The New York Police Department's Intelligence Division also informed the Dutch embassy liaison in Washington, that they were wanted for "terrorism, extremism and recruitment".

Death

Khalid El Bakraoui has been identified as the suicide bomber at Maalbeek metro station in Brussels on 22 March 2016.