Islamic State Group Claims Responsibility For the Attacks in Brussels That Left 35 People Dead.

"Soldiers of the caliphate carried out an attack targeting the crusader state of Belgium, which is fighting Islam and its people," Islamic State Group group said in a statement posted online.

The Belgian capital was hit by deadly bomb attacks, barely a week after a police raid on an apartment that led to the dramatic capture of the last fugitive from the Paris massacre.

Salah Abdeslam, Europe's most wanted man, was arrested Friday in a shootout with police in the gritty Molenbeek district of Brussels where the Paris attacks were hatched.

The 26-year-old Frenchman -- who had been on the run for four months -- had told investigators he was planning another strike in Brussels, the home of the European Union and NATO.

The city in the crosshairs of the French attacks probe has witnessed several lockdowns since the Paris carnage claimed by the Islamic State group, and is currently at its second highest level of terror alert.

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The Brussels attackers, who also wounded more than 200, wore suicide vests and carried explosive devices and machineguns, the statement said, adding that they "detonated their vests" amid their victims at the Brussels airport and on the metro.

Brussels has been on high alert since January 2015 when jihadists stormed the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly and a Jewish supermarket, killing 17, with heavily-armed police and then troops deployed on the streets.

The statement vowed "dark days ahead" for states fighting the jihadists.
Source: Reuters.
Image: Courtesy