Police try to calm a man at the scene of a shooting in Liege, Belgium, Tuesday, May 29, 2018. A gunman killed three people, including two police officers, in the Belgian city of Liege on Tuesday, a city... (Associated Press) 
 
 Police try to calm a man at the scene of a shooting in Liege, Belgium, Tuesday, May 29, 2018. A gunman killed three people, including two police officers, in the Belgian city of Liege on Tuesday, a city official said. Police later killed the attacker, and other officers were wounded in the shooting.(AP... (Associated Press) 
 
 LIEGE, Belgium (AP) — A knife-wielding prison inmate on a 48-hour leave stabbed two police officers Tuesday in the Belgian city of Liege, seized their service weapons and shot them and a bystander to death before being mowed down by a group of officers, setting off a major terror investigation into the country's most savage assault since 2016 suicide attacks. 
 
 Prime Minister Charles Michel acknowledged the assailant, who had a lengthy criminal record that included theft, assault and drug offenses, had appeared in three reports on radicalism but was still allowed to take a leave from prison. 
 
 "Is our system working when we see that these kind of people are running free?" asked vice premier Alexander De Croo, echoing the thoughts of many in a nation where armed police and gun-toting soldiers still patrol the streets in the wake of the March 2016 attacks that left 32 people dead at the Brussels airport and subway system. 
 
 Tuesday's attack happened outside a cafe in the eastern city of Liege when the assailant crept up on the two female officers from behind and stabbed them repeatedly. 
 
 "He then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died," the Liege prosecutor's spokesman, Philippe Dulieu, told reporters. 
 
 Dulieu said the attacker then shot and killed a 22-year-old teacher in a vehicle that was leaving a parking lot outside a nearby high school. He then took two women hostage inside the school before confronting police massed outside. 
 
 "He came out firing at police, wounding a number of them, notably in the legs. He was shot dead," the spokesman said, adding that the hostages escaped unharmed. 
 
 Justice Minister Koen Geens described the assailant as a repeat offender who had been incarcerated since 2003 and was due for release in two years. 
 
 Police Chief Christian Beaupere said "the goal of the attacker was to target the police." He identified the slain officers as 45-year-old Lucile Garcia and 53-year-old Soraya Belkacemi. He said Belkacemi was the mother of 13-year-old twin daughters who earlier lost their father, also a police officer. Four other officers were wounded in the attack, one seriously with a severed femoral artery. 
 
 Belgian media identified the suspect as Benjamin Herman, a Belgian national born in 1982, though in keeping with standard procedure authorities declined to confirm his identity. 
 
 Interior Minister Jan Jambon said authorities were also investigating the suspected killing on Monday of an old acquaintance of the assailant and said there could be a link. "It is a serious hypothesis," he told the VRT network. 
 
 Asked about a video from close to the scene in which someone appeared to be shouting "Allahu Akbar!" in the din, Jambon said: "My reaction is that in many terror acts, it is the last thing they shout." But, he added, it is up to federal investigators to determine if Tuesday's attack was terrorism. 
 
 "The investigation judge must find out if we talk about terror. Because terror also has to do with someone who gives the order, ISIS or someone else, if others are involved. We need to look at all these elements," Jambon said. 
 
 Michel said the suspect in Tuesday's attack was indirectly mentioned in state security reports on radicalization. But, the prime minister added, the reference was "in notes that did not primarily target him, but others or other situations," and he was not on a list of suspects maintained by the main OCAD anti-terror assessment group. 
 
 Asked about reports that the assailant was radicalized in prison, Geens, the justice minister, said it "was not a clear-cut case." 
 
 "He certainly was not someone who could clearly be qualified as radicalized. Otherwise he would have been known as such by all services," Geens said. 
 
 But a senior official at the federal prosecutor's office told The Associated Press that "there are indications it could be a terror attack." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation. 
 
 Nevertheless, Belgium's crisis center said the country's terror threat alert would not be raised and remained at level 2 out of 4. It briefly stood at a maximum 4 shortly after the 2016 attacks. 
 
 Belgium's King Philippe, Michel and the country's justice and interior ministers traveled to Liege to confer with local officials. 
 
 "I want to offer my government's support for the victims, for the victims' families," Michel said. 
 
 It's not the first time Liege has been hit by a violent attack. In December 2011, a man with a history of weapons and drug offenses hurled hand grenades into a square filled with Christmas shoppers then opened fire on those who tried to escape. Five people were killed, including the assailant. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Cook and Casert reported from Brussels. ||||| LIEGE, Belgium/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Islamic State claimed responsibility on Wednesday for an attack the previous day in the Belgian city of Liege in which two policewomen and a bystander were killed, but provided no proof. 
 
 The militant group said in an online statement that a “soldier of the caliphate” had carried out what Belgian police called a terrorist attack. It has previously claimed similar “lone wolf” acts thought to be Islamist-inspired, often without providing evidence. 
 
 Belgian authorities meanwhile faced questions over why the attacker, a prison inmate who was suspected of links to radical Islamists in jail, was let out for a day. He was shot dead by police at a school near the scene. 
 
 Interior Minister Jan Jambon said authorities were still examining the motives of Benjamin Herman, a 31-year-old Belgian drug dealer who had been in jail for years but was let out for two days on Monday to prepare for an eventual release in 2020. 
 
 Herman had shouted “Allahu Akbar”, the Muslim affirmation of faith, during his attack and he had had contact with Islamist radicals in jail in 2016 and early 2017. 
 
 He also appeared to have followed online exhortations from Islamic State to stab police officers and use their service weapons to shoot others, prosecutors said. 
 
 A cleaning woman at the school who found herself “nose to face with the killer” told public broadcaster RTBF that he spared her because she was Muslim. 
 
 While he briefly held her hostage, he told her he wanted the police to “writhe; I want to make them stew”. 
 
 Justice Minister Koen Geens told RTBF radio he was having pangs of conscience over whether the man should have been allowed the furlough. 
 
 Still reeling from the attack, residents of Belgium’s third biggest city lay flowers and candles at the scene of the shooting on Wednesday, and officials held a moment of silence. 
 
 A policewoman reacts during a minute of silence in Liege, Belgium May 30, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman 
 
 “We had all of the little ones from the high school who were evacuated,” said an emotional nursery school teacher, Joelle Chalon. “I walk this way to work every day.” 
 
 Authorities praised the quick-wittedness of the cafe owner outside whose bar Herman had killed the two policewomen, aged 54 and 44. By the time the killer, wielding two police pistols, came in looking for more victims, the cafe proprietor had got all of his customers into hiding. 
 
 Jambon described Herman as a psychologically unstable man who might have been on drugs, pointing to his murder of an acquaintance 50 km (30 miles) away on Monday night. 
 
 “There are signs he was radicalized in prison but is it that radicalization which drove him to commit these acts?” Jambon said, adding that although Herman was flagged up in security reports in 2016 and early 2017, he had been a fringe figure. 
 
 JAIL TO JIHAD? 
 
 In and out of jail for a variety of crimes since 2003, Herman may have found a path to violence that has heightened concerns that Europe’s prisons are incubators for jihadism. 
 
 It was the 14th time since his detention that he was granted temporary leave, Geens said. “Everyone in Belgium is asking the same question: how is it possible that someone convicted of such serious acts was allowed to leave prisons?” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander de Croo was quoted as saying. 
 
 The national crisis center, on high alert since a Brussels-based Islamic State cell helped kill 130 people in Paris in 2015, did not raise its alert level, indicating no follow-up attacks were expected. 
 
 “I think it was just one individual who completely snapped,” said Pieter Van Ostaeyen, a specialist on jihadism. “I don’t think it was an organized attack.” 
 
 Convicts have been behind several Islamist militant attacks in Europe. In Belgium, around 450 prisoners are deemed radical, including 46 that are seen as a threat of radicalizing others, according to lawmaker George Dallemagne, who sits on several Belgian parliamentary security committees. 
 
 “We have a tragic experience in Belgium, with people entering prison as petty criminals and leaving as terrorists,” he told Reuters. 
 
 Slideshow (15 Images)
– A knife-wielding prison inmate on a 48-hour leave stabbed two police officers Tuesday in the Belgian city of Liege, seized their service weapons, and shot them and a bystander to death before being mowed down by a group of officers, setting off a major terror investigation into the country's most savage assault since the March 2016 attacks that left 32 people dead at the Brussels airport and subway system. Prime Minister Charles Michel acknowledged the assailant, who had a lengthy criminal record that included theft, assault, and drug offenses, had appeared in three reports on radicalism but was still allowed to take a leave from prison, the AP reports. "Is our system working when we see that these kind of people are running free?" asked Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. The suspect is also believed to have killed an acquaintance the day before the Liege attack. Tuesday's attack happened outside a cafe when the assailant crept up on the two female officers from behind and stabbed them repeatedly. "He then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died," the Liege prosecutor's spokesman, Philippe Dulieu, told reporters. Dulieu said the attacker then shot and killed a 22-year-old teacher in a vehicle that was leaving a parking lot outside a nearby high school. He then took two women hostage inside the school before confronting police massed outside. "He came out firing at police, wounding a number of them, notably in the legs. He was shot dead," the spokesman said, adding that the hostages escaped unharmed. Sources tell Reuters that the suspect was Benjamin Herman, an inmate who converted to Islam and became radicalized in prison.