(CNN)Authorities
have identified the two suicide bombers involved in the attack at the
Brussels airport on Tuesday, a senior Belgian security source told CNN.
They
are brothers Khalid and Brahim El Bakraoui, both of whom were known to
police, but for organized crime, not for acts of terrorism, state
broadcaster RTBF reported.
Khalid El
Bakraoui rented an apartment in Brussels that was raided last week and
both are suspected of having ties to the Paris attack, the source said.
While
Belgian officials say both brothers were suicide bombers, a U.S.
official briefed earlier on preliminary evidence from the investigation
says authorities are looking at the possibility that one of the airport
explosions may have been caused by a bomb inside a suitcase and the
other was a suicide bombing.
Now, the
hunt is on for a third remaining suspect -- a man in light-colored
clothing who appeared next to the El Bakraoui brothers at the airport in
security footage.
Three suspects, two explosions and a taxi driver
One of the first major breaks in the investigation appears to have come from a taxi driver.
Just
hours after the explosions, Belgian authorities released a photo from
airport security that showed three men -- two in black and one in
lighter clothes, wearing a hat.
Video shows the men exiting a taxi and moving through the airport, according to two U.S. officials.
The
two in darker clothes are believed to be suicide bombers who died in
the explosions in the airport's departure lounge, according to Belgian
federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw.
But
investigators believe the man in light-colored clothing planted a bomb
at the airport, then left -- a move that appeared to be planned, the two
U.S. officials said.
Authorities are calling him a wanted man and asked for the public's help tracking him down.
"It's
Salah Abdeslam all over again," Dirk Coosemans, a reporter at Belgian
newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, told CNN. "This one was there to be a suicide
terrorist, and he didn't do it."
Belgian media also reported a Kalashnikov assault rifle was found in the departure hall of the Zaventem airport.
Fortunately,
a taxi driver called police shortly after the photo was released and
said he believed that he drove the trio to the airport.
The
driver told authorities that his passengers would not allow him to
unload the suitcases from the cab. He also led investigators to the
location where he picked the three of them up.
Schaerbeek
That information prompted authorities to raid a residence after the attacks, the officials said.
Investigators
found a nail bomb, chemical products and an ISIS flag during a house
search in the northeast Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek, Belgium's
federal prosecutor said in a statement.
Forensic
teams are now scouring an apartment building in that neighborhood and
have been seen carrying out bags of evidence, according to CNN's
Frederik Pleitgen, who was reporting from just outside the building.
Their work continued into the night.
Putting the pieces back together
Determining what type of explosives were used will be crucial, according to CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen.
French prosecutors have said that the bombs used in the November Paris attacks were made from triacetone triperoxide, or TATP.
If the same type of bombs were used in Paris and Brussels, that would be a key clue linking the two attacks.
"Such
bombs have been a signature of jihadist terrorists in the West for more
than a decade because the materials are so easy to acquire, unlike
military-grade explosives, which are tightly controlled in much of the
West," Bergen said.
TATP-based
bombs require technical know-how and bulk purchases of hydrogen
peroxide or hair bleach. That helps authorities winnow down potential
bomb-making suspects, because making the explosives can sometimes bleach
hair. So authorities can identify bomb-makers in part by recognizing
unusually-bleached hair or asking sellers to report any suspiciously
large purchases of hydrogen peroxide.
Dearth of Maelbeek information
While
authorities have been able to move quickly on intelligence from the
airport attacks, very little has been publicly revealed about the
bombing at the Maelbeek metro station.
Coosemans, the Het Nieuwsblad reporter, says that's because there isn't as much surveillance there compared to the airport.
"We
just know less about the Maelbeek attack because we don't have pictures
there," he told CNN. "The police know less about Maelbeek."
Unraveling the network
Two
senior U.S. officials told CNN they believe the Belgium attack is tied
to the same network as terror suspect Salah Abdeslam (ISIS has claimed
responsibility for the attack.)
And the
"working assumption" in Belgium is that the attackers came from the
network behind the Paris attack, Belgian security sources said. However,
they cautioned it is very early in the latest investigation.
The
identities of the three airport suspects aren't clear to U.S.
authorities, either because Belgian authorities haven't completed
identification or haven't shared that information with counterterrorism
officials in the U.S., the officials said.
Going forward, intelligence sharing will be very important, says Steve Moore, a CNN law enforcement contributor.
"They
obviously have some information. They don't know if they're looking at
one cell or a series of cells. And so now it's time to get all around at
the same table and exchange information," he said. "If you can get them
all to use the same currency, I cannot believe that you can't get them
all to share intelligence."
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