The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tipped off Dutch investigators that two brothers were being sought by Belgian police less than a week before the pair blew themselves up in the Brussels attacks, a Dutch minister has said. 
Dutch Interior Minister Ard van der Steur was responding to questions from legislators about Belgian brothers Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui, named as two of the bombers who killed 35 people and injured more than 340 in coordinated attacks on the Belgian capital last week, according to UK's newspaper (The Guardian). 
"On 16 March, the FBI informed Dutch police that both brothers were sought by Belgian authorities," the minister wrote in a letter to Dutch MPs. 
Van der Steur said the FBI told the Dutch authorities that Ibrahim was sought by the Belgian authorities for 'his criminal background", while Khalid was wanted for 'terrorism, extremism and recruitment". 
The attacks have raised difficult questions about the failures of Europe's intelligence services to communicate with each other, The Guardian said. 
Ibrahim was deported to the Netherlands from Turkey in July 2015, a month after being picked up by Turkish police near the Syrian border. The Netherlands said that when he arrived his name did not appear on any blacklists so he was not detained. Why he was not deported to Belgium is unclear.

Source: QNA