Two female police officers in the Belgian city of Charleroi were injured Saturday by a man wielding a machete who was calling “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is greatest” in Arabic, city police said.
“The attacker is dead,” the police later wrote on Twitter.
Local media reported that he had been shot by a third officer and later died in hospital.
The incident, which took place near the Charleroi police headquarters, follows a series of knife and gun attacks carried out across Europe in recent weeks, some of which are being linked to terrorist motives.
The two wounded officers have not sustained life-threatening injuries, the police wrote on Twitter.
One of them suffered deep cuts around the face and was taken to hospital, the Belga news agency reported.
Her colleague was only slightly injured.
“I strongly condemn the attack in Charleroi,” Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel wrote on Twitter.
He is coming back to Belgium to meet with security services on Sunday, sources told Belga.
Interior Minister Jan Jambon called it a “vile act” in a tweet and expressed his support for the police officers, their families and their colleagues.
The Belgian threat analysis unit, OCAM, is evaluating the situation, he added.
A large security perimeter has been set up around the site of the attack in the city 50 kilometres south of Brussels, and prosecutors are on site, Belga wrote.
In March, more than 30 people were killed in terrorist attacks across the Belgian capital.
One of the suicide bombers in those attacks, Khalid El Bakraoui, was suspected of having rented an apartment in Charleroi under a false name, to serve as a hideout for the terrorist group behind deadly attacks in Paris last November.
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