Brussels suicide bombers were targeting AMERICANS, claims chairman of Congress Intelligence Committee as Obama defends his decision not to return home in aftermath

The suicide bombers behind the Brussels attacks likely attempted to target Americans, the top lawmaker on the intelligence committee in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Wednesday.

Representative Devin Nunes of California said the explosion at Brussels airport on Tuesday was close to U.S. airline counters and the metro station targeted was close to the U.S. embassy.

'From my vantage point it does look like an attack on Americans. It looks like it was targeted toward Americans to some degree,' Nunes told reporters. 

Nunes, who is chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has been briefed by U.S. intelligence agencies several times since the attacks.

He said it appeared likely that the bombers were connected to the arrest of a surviving suspect of last November's attacks in Paris, identified as Salah Abdeslam.

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'Attack on Americans': Devin Nunes, the top Congressman on hi chamber's intelligence committee, said the terror attacks in Brussels were directed towards Americans 'to some degree'. Barack Obama has come under fire for his seemingly relaxed response to the attacks. He is pictured at a baseball game in Cuba hours after the bombers hit

Near US airline desks: Nunes said the bombers detonated their explosives at Brussels airport near the counters of American airlines. The second suicide bomber (left) who blew himself up at Brussels airport has been identified as master bombmaker Najim Laachraoui as police search for the mystery man in white. The bomber in the middle is believed to be Ibrhaim al-Bakraoui.

"We don't want to be definitive, but it appears like this group had connections to the arrest that was made a few days ago," the Republican lawmaker said.

But he said it was too early to know whether the "good theory" that the plot was accelerated by Abdeslam's arrest is true. He said he did not believe the cell was contained and that it was much larger than the attackers who have come to light.

Nunes stressed that it is early in the investigation, and too soon to answer questions such as whether Islamic State leaders in Syria had planned the attacks, whether the attackers had relied on encrypted communications or to identify a third attacker believed to be on the loose.

He said U.S. intelligence agencies were working with Belgium.

"It's a small country. You've got a huge influx of radicals who have been moving into there. It's seen as ... safer than the other locations because the police force is small, so we are working with them as are our other allies to improve their capabilities and share intelligence," Nunes said.

He said a sufficient number of law enforcement personnel were needed to track militant suspects who could number in the hundreds. "It's easy to lose track if you're not on top of them." 

Nunes's comments about the bombers targeting US targets could increase the pressure on President Obama, who has come under fire for continuing his visit to Cuba and Argentina rather than returning home. 

Obama is due to return to Washington Friday morning and has made no indications that he'll come back sooner in spite of Tuesday's terror attack in Brussels.

His most vociferous critic has been former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who criticized Obama for commenting on the attacks while wearing sunglasses at a baseball game in Cuba.

Panic: A fire caused by one of the explosions in the terminal is tackled by airport staff with extinguishers surrounded by baggage and falling roof tiles

President Barack Obama deflected criticism today of his foreign travel in the wake of Belgium's terror attacks, saying from Argentina that the U.S. must show ISIS that it does not have power over its citizens

 'You don't send a picture of yourself laughing ,while people have just been blown up at a level that...is the equivalent of September 11 to one of our allies,' said Giuliani, mayor of New York at the time of deadly 2001 terrorist attacks.

Republicans are angry with Obama for staying in Cuba in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Belgium and going about his day as planned.

That included a baseball game, which he was seen at with his family doing the wave and casually chatting with Cuban dictator Raul Castro, at Havana's Latinoamericano stadium and an am speech cementing the United States and Cuba's renewed relations.

Obama spent less than a minute addressing the bombings at the top of his remarks yesterday and spent much of a press conference today in Argentina responding to Republicans' criticisms as a result.

Pointing in the direction of Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, who was standing to his left at a joint news conference this afternoon in Buenos Aires, Obama said, 'It's important for the United States president and the United States government to be able to work with people who are building and who are creating things.'

Earlier in the day, on MSNBC, Giuliani had lambasted Obama for 'analogizing' himself yesterday to the Boston Red Sox' David Ortiz.

Recalling what he called one of his proudest memories during his time as president, Obama told ESPN yesterday Ortiz's reaction to the Boston bombings in April 2013 was spot on.

Obama said he felt the player spoke for the nation when he said, 'This is our f**king city and nobody is going to dictate our freedom.'

'David Ortiz is a designated hitter,' Giuliani said on Morning Joe. 'He's the President of the United States, and he's comparing himself to a designated hitter, and the wonderful speech that he gave?'

The retired Republican politician who once ran for president himself said of Obama, 'This man's job is to be the leader of the free world, which means the leader of NATO.'

Obama brought up Ortiz again today and said, 'At that moment he spoke about what America is.'

'That is how we are going to defeat these terrorist groups,' Obama said.

Part of the strategy is tactical - airstrikes, intelligence and arrests. But the United States must also tell the terrorists, 'You are not strong. You are weak.'

Brussels bombers: Brothers Khalid (left) and Ibrahim El Bakraoui (right) were able to evade security services despite being notorious gangland criminals who were well known to police, it emerged

Appalling scenes: An injured man lies bleeding on the floor of Zaventem airport in Brussels

'Even as we are systematic and ruthless and focused in going after them, disrupting their networks, getting their leaders....it is very important for us to not respond with fear,' the president said.

Giuliani said Obama should have responded to the terrorist attack yesterday the way that France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls did.

'We are at war,' Valls told the Associated Press on Tuesday. 'We have been subjected for the last few months in Europe to acts of war.'

Giuliani claimed that Valls said it is an 'Islamic, terrorist war against us.'

'Quote, he's willing to describe it this way,' Giuliani said. 'Words that will never come out of the president's mouth.'

He added: 'War against a NATO ally is war against us.'

Obama has said the United States is at war with ISIS and and its allies. But Republicans argue that's not enough. They want him to declare war against 'radical, Islamic' terrorism.

Asked if he believes that Obama doesn't have one already, Giuliani laughed in disbelief and said, 'If he does, it's failing, he better get a new one.'

'How many attacks have we had in the last year?' he said. 'If he has a plan for defeating ISIS, let's go get another plan to defeat ISIS.'

Told that the U.S. has had more than 20,000 bombing raids on ISIS, Giuliani said, 'Well maybe they're not working.'

'If he can't figure out his strategy is not working, then we need someone else to that job,' he added.

He dismissed during the lengthy discussion a suggestion that it wouldn't have made a 'difference' if Obama had come back to Washington yesterday instead of continuing on to Argentina.

'The difference it would have made is that it would have made people feel that he's a leader, that he's in charge,' said Giuliani, who ran for president the same year as Obama, in 2008, but dropped his bid before the end of the GOP primary.