MICHEL WILMET via REUTERS
Three people, including two police officers, have been shot dead by a gunman in eastern Belgium during a hostage situation on Tuesday morning.
The perpetrator has since been shot dead as well.
Police are treating the incident as a terrorism, the BBC reported, citing Belgian authorities.
Multiple shots were heard near rue des Augustins in downtown Liège around 10:30 a.m. local time.
Videos posted on social media showed police cars in the city centre as multiple gun shots rung out.
The suspect shot at two police officers near a cafe before running into a nearby school and taking a woman hostage, the RTL TV network reported. The hostage's condition remains unknown.
The gunman's third victim was a passenger in a car driving by at the time. It's not clear when or where the gunman shot at them.
Other police officers were injured in in a scuffle with the suspect, La Libre newspaper reported.
Courtesy of VICTOR JAY/via REUTERS
The gunman shouted "Allahu akbar," an Arabic phrase that means "God is greatest," during the attack, a police source told La Libre.
Public broadcaster RTBF named the suspect as a 36-year-old Belgian who had been released from a nearby prison. He was serving time for drug offences and classified as "unstable," but was not a list of possible violent extremists.
Belgium has been on high alert since a domestic Islamic State cell killed 32 people in three coordinated suicide attacks in Brussels in March 2016. The same militants were also involved in attacks on Paris in November 2015 that killed 130 people.
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