Belgian authorities missed a key chance to gather intelligence on attacks

Even as the men involved in Tuesday’s attacks were racing to strike, fearful that authorities were closing in on them, investigators did not ask the attackers’ jailed ally, Salah Abdeslam, about his knowledge of future plots, Belgian federal prosecutors said Friday.

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The Brussels attacks left 31 people dead, while destroying a subway car and shattering the city’s international airport. Airport authorities announced Saturday that they are preparing for a “partial” reopening — but not before Tuesday, exactly a week after the attackers struck.

Abdeslam, believed to be the logistics chief of the Islamic State’s November attacks in Paris, was apprehended March 18, apparently spurring one of the Brussels attackers to write that he feared capture by the police. But after Abdeslam’s arrest, investigators concentrated solely on the Paris attacks. Abdeslam was questioned for two hours last Saturday, the day after he was captured in a raid at a Brussels safe house — and then no other discussions were held until after Tuesday’s attacks, when he refused to speak further, prosecutors said.

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