Potential Terrorist Attack in Brussels

A man wounded two police officers with a knife in Brussels around noon on Wednesday in what the authorities called “a potential terrorist attack.”

The two officers were attacked on the Boulevard Lambermont in the Schaerbeek district, just north of the city center. A third police officer, who came to their aid, was also injured. None of the three had life-threatening injuries.

The man suspected of carrying out the assault was shot in the leg. He was identified only as Hicham D., 43, a Belgian citizen.

“The provisional results of the investigation indicate that it would be a potential terrorist attack,” Eric Van der Sijpt, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office, said in a statement. “The investigating judge specializing in terrorism cases will decide later” about the suspect’s “further detention.”

Mr. Van der Sijpt said that Hicham D. was a former soldier and member of the Belgian Armed Forces, but did not say whether he had been cited before in terrorism investigations.

Brussels, the Belgian capital and the headquarters for most of the European Union’s core institutions, has been on high alert since March 22, when suicide bombers killed 32 people and injured hundreds of others in coordinated attacks at the city’s airport and at a subway station.