Najim Laachraoui (18 May 1991 – 22 March 2016) was an Islamic State member from Belgium who was a perpetrator of the 2016 Brussels bombings.
Biography[]
Najim Laachraoui was born on May 18, 1991 in Ajdir, Morocco to a family of Sunni Muslims, before moving to Brussels, Belgium. Under the alias "Soufiane Kayal", he joined the Islamic State jihadist group. In February 2013, he headed to Syria and fought in the Syrian Civil War, and he later returned to Belgium, where he joined Abdelhamid Abaaoud's Molenbeek terror cell in the suburbs of the capital of Brussels. Laachraoui was the one who developed the suicide vests used in the November 2015 Paris attacks, and he became a wanted man as a result. On 18 March 2016, he went on the run after Belgian police raided an apartment where Laachraoui and Salah Abdeslam were hiding, and while Abdeslam was captured, Laachraoui escaped. He went on to meet up with Brahim al-Bakraoui and Khalid al-Bakraoui, and Laachraoui and Brahim fired on crowds of people at the Brussels Airport before blowing themselves up.
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