BRUSSELS - A gunman killed two police
officers and a passer-by on Tuesday before being himself shot
dead in the centre of the eastern Belgian city of Liege, public
broadcaster RTBF said on its website.
Belgium's anti-terrorist crisis centre was monitoring the
situation, Interior Minister Jan Jambon said on Twitter. It was
unclear, however, what lay behind the incident in which the man
had also taken a woman hostage, according to RTBF.
Two other police officers had been injured, Belga news
agency said. A spokeswoman for the Liege public prosecutors
office confirmed that two police officers had been shot dead and
the gunman "neutralised" but could not confirm other details.
Images on social media showed people scurrying for safety on
Liege's central boulevard d'Avroy with shots and sirens being
heard in the background. One video showed two police in body
armour moving into position.
Liege, an industrial city close to the German border in the
French-speaking Wallonia region, was also the scene of a
shooting in 2011, when a gunman killed four people and wounded
over 100 before turning the gun on himself.
Belgium has been on high alert since a Brussels-based
Islamic State cell was involved in attacks on Paris in 2015 that
killed 130 people and Brussels in 2016 in which 32 died.