Deadly Belgium attack was act of terrorism, prosecutors say

Authorities in Belgium on Wednesday declared a series of deadly shootings in the city of Liege this week to be terrorism.

Prosecutors said that a man who killed four people, including two police officers, on Monday committed an act of “terrorist murder,” The Associated Press reported. 

The man was identified by authorities as Benjamin Herman, an inmate on a two-day leave from prison. Herman allegedly stabbed two female police officers from behind before taking their handguns and fatally shooting them.

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Herman then fatally shot a 22-year-old man in a car, officials said. He proceeded to take a woman hostage in a school. As police closed in on him, he exited the school and began firing, before being fatally shot himself by police.

Authorities said that Herman had also killed a fourth person. 

Herman reportedly shouted “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great,” several times throughout his rampage, according to the AP.

Authorities are still trying to determine whether he acted alone. A federal magistrate in Belgium said the incident was being treated as terrorism given how Herman acted, saying it resembled calls in video from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to go after police with knives and take their weapons.

Imaankaf Darifa, the woman taken hostage in the school on Monday, told the AP that she tried to keep the attacker from children. 

“I told him: ‘you are in a school here, you cannot come in a school, it is not right what you are doing,’ ” she said.