The New York Times reports: The attacks in Brussels on Tuesday were carried out by two brothers who detonated suicide bombs, Belgian officials said on Wednesday, as the police continued an intense hunt for at least one other participant in the attacks. The toll from the assaults stood at 31 dead and 270 injured.

The brothers — Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, 29, and Khalid el-Bakraoui, 27 — were Belgian and had criminal records, officials said. But the pair had no known links to terrorism until the authorities conducted a raid on March 15 on an apartment in the Forest district of Brussels, as part of the investigation into the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris.

Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and another man blew themselves up at the airport at 7:58 a.m. — in two explosions, nine seconds apart — and then Khalid el-Bakraoui carried out a suicide attack at the Maelbeek subway station around an hour later, Frédéric Van Leeuw, the Belgian federal prosecutor, said at a news conference. It was not immediately clear whether Khalid el-Bakraoui also participated in the airport attacks.

The search continued for a man who was recorded by a security camera alongside Ibrahim el-Bakraoui at the airport, who was believed to have fled.

After the attacks, a taxi driver approached the police and led them to a house on Rue Max Roos, in the Schaerbeek section of Brussels, where he had picked up three men, according to Mr. Van Leeuw. There, the authorities found about 33 pounds of the explosive material TATP — a large amount. By comparison, officials say the suicide belts used by the Paris attackers each contained less than a pound of TATP. [Continue reading…]