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Spain to boost security at airports after Brussels attacks

AFP/The Local
AFP/The Local - [email protected]
Spain to boost security at airports after Brussels attacks
Catalan regional police on patrol in Barcelona's El Prat airport following the attacks on Brussels. Photo: AFP

Spain will beef up security at its airports in the aftermath of the deadly attacks on the Brussels airport and its metro system, Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said on Tuesday.

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"A catalogue of operational measures whose goal is to reinforce security at airports will de adopted. For obvious reasons allow me not to give you more details about those measures," he told a news conference.

Spain will maintain the nation's state of alert at a level of four out of five on the "unanimous" recommendation of Spanish anti-terror experts, he added.

Level four is the highest level since March, 11th, 2004, when 10 bombs exploded in four trains in Madrid killing 191 people and injuring more than 1,800 others.

An official investigation determined that the attacks were directed by an Al-Qaeda-inspired cell.

The bombings in the Brussels metro and the Zaventem airport just outside the Belgian capital, claimed by the Islamic State group, left around 35 dead and scores more injured.

There are no known Spanish fatalities after the attack but four Spaniards had been hospitalised, the interior minister said. Their injuries did not appear to be serious, he added.

"It is a black day for Belgium but also for the rest of Europe," the minister said.

Earlier on Tuesday Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said it was "a sad day for all decent human beings".

"Nobody is safe from indiscriminate attacks. Terrorism is a global threat against freedom and rights. There is no religion which supports such criminal fanaticism. There is no possible justification for this barbarity," he said.

Spanish national prosecutors have also announced that they are investigating whether the terrorist cell in Brussels has connections to jihadists in Spain, according to Europa Press.
 
The chief prosecutor of Spain's National Court reportedly told his Belgian counterparts that his department would provide "assistance and cooperation that is needed, in real time".

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