23 June, 2017
Even though a nail bomb didn't fully go off in Brussels Central Station late Tuesday and failed to hit dozens of commuters close by, it didn't stop fear going up a further notch.
The soldier shot the man dead.
"We have to see in what kind of society we want to live in", said Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon.
Prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said the suspect, identified only by his initials O.Z., had approached a group of passengers beneath the main concourse and attempted to blow up his suitcase.
The man then shouted "Allahu akbar", Arabic for "God is great", before the soldiers shot him dead, the magistrate said.
Brussels Central Station reopened this morning as station personnel were seen cleaning the spot where the attack took place.
Those measures come on top of ones that have been in place under the second highest level of terror alert since twin bomb attacks killed 32 people in Brussels in March previous year.
The blast came a day after a terrorist ploughed down Muslim worshippers leaving evening prayers in Finsbury Park, north London, and a man claiming allegiance to Isis crashed his auto into a police van on Champs-Elysees in Paris.
The Belgian capital, home to the headquarters of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the European Union, has been on high alert since Brussels-based Islamic State members killed 130 people in Paris in November 2015 and then organised the attack in Brussels months later.
It appeared no one else was injured besides the suspect and the damage from the explosion was limited, Brussels prosecutor's office spokeswoman Ine Van Wymersch told VRT.
The suspect was initially reported to have been wearing an explosive belt and had wires coming out of his clothes, according to some media, although police say they are unable to comment on the reports. It was evacuated amid the incident along with the Belgian capital's Grand Place, a major tourist site about 600ft away.
Hours after the incident the suspect's body remained at the scene as bomb squads searched the area.
There were no other casualties, Van Der Sypt said.
"I was behind a wall when it exploded". In the end, there was a small explosion to which soldiers reacted immediately.
The country's terror level remains at three, signifying a serious and likely threat.
Soldiers have been deployed at railway stations and landmark buildings in Belgium since the Paris terror attacks when a link to Brussels was first established.
"I was having dinner with two work mates in a restaurant a few hundred metres from the train station, and we saw people running and shouting", he told us.
The explosive TATP was used in the November 2015 Paris attacks, the March 2016 Brussels bombings and the May 2017 Manchester bombing.
