Forensics

Who Is the Man in the White Jacket?


In grainy CCTV footage from the Brussels airport, a man in a white jacket is pictured walking next to two men with black gloves on their left hands. All three are pushing trolleys laden with large suitcases. The gloved men are thought to be carrying concealed detonators for the bombs hidden in their suitcases. But something went wrong for the man in the white jacket: His explosives didn’t go off. The fugitive is now Belgium’s — and Europe’s — most wanted man.

The mystery suspect has yet to be publicly identified by Belgian authorities, but he is believed to be part of an Islamic State terror network behind both Tuesday’s carnage in Brussels that killed 31 people and the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris that left 130 dead. The network has deep roots in Muslim neighborhoods in Belgium as well as the Islamic State’s bastion in eastern Syria. But events this week underscored how Belgian and other Western authorities are still struggling to get a handle on the full extent of the group’s tentacles in Europe, amid fears that another attack may be launched before security services can roll up the group’s cell.