2016 Brussels bombings
attacks of 22 March 2016
On 22 March 2016, two coordinated terrorist attacks in and close to Brussels, Belgium, were carried out by the Islamic State (IS). Two suicide bombers detonated bombs at Brussels Airport in Zaventem just outside Brussels, and a third detonated a bomb on a train leaving Maelbeek/Maalbeek metro station in the city's European Quarter. Thirty-two people were killed and more than 300 were injured. The three perpetrators also died in the explosions. A third airport attacker fled the scene without detonating his bomb, which was later found in a search of the airport. A second metro attacker also fled, taking his bomb with him. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The perpetrators belonged to a terrorist cell that had been involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks and the attacks happened shortly after a series of police raids targeting the group. The Belgian Government declared three days of national mourning after the bombings, which were the deadliest attacks on Belgium since World War II.
In December 2022, ten men accused of involvement in the attacks went on trial in Brussels. Six were convicted of terrorist-related murder and attempted murder, while two were convicted of terrorist activities.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “2016 Brussels bombings” as attacks of 22 March 2016. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as attacks of 22 March 2016. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23365300. Authority coordinates are 50.900, 4.483. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2015 and 2022.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “2016 Brussels bombings” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.