Police shoot 'Arabic ex-soldier' in the leg after he stabs two officers in Belgium's 'hotbed of jihad' in suspected terror attack before Brussels train station is evacuated 

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Two police officers were stabbed as one of Belgium's busiest train stations was evacuated due to a bomb scare.

The officers were attacked by an unnamed individual in a busy main road in Schaerbeek, known as a 'hotbed of jihadism'.  

Police shot the suspect in the leg and arrested him.  

The assailant has been named in Belgian newspaper De Standaard as 43-year-old 'Hicham D', a Belgian national who was formerly in the armed forces and known to the security services.

He is reported to have had contact with jihadi fighters who had returned from Syria.  

Belgium - which has a population of 11 million people - has supplied the highest per capita number of fighters to Syria of any European country.  

Federal prosecutor's spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt said 'we have reason to believe it is terror-related.' 

The attack came hours after commuters were ordered to leave Brussels Nord Train Station as it was swept for explosives. 

An officer stands next to the scene when an unidentified man tried to stab two officers 

The assailant Wednesday stabbed one officer in the neck and the other in the stomach in the city's Schaerbeek neighborhood

Blood spatters are seen behind a police cordon after two officers were stabbed on the street

Police stand at the scene where officers were stabbed by an unidentified man in Schaarbeek

The prosecutor's office said the man stabbed one of the plain clothed police officers in the stomach and the other in the neck.

Neither was seriously hurt.

The suspect then tried to run away but was spotted by a second group of officers who shot him in the leg.

The 'strongly built' suspect 'broke the nose' of one of the policemen in the struggle.

Jan Jambon, Belgium’s interior minister, tweeted 'all my support to the police in Schaerbeek'. 

Schaerbeek has become synonymous with terrorism after a dilapidated 1960s flat in the neighbourhood was used by three jihadists as a bomb-making safehouse prior to the devastating airport and metro attacks on March 22.    

The Criminal Investigation Department pictured at the scene of a stabbing in Schaerbeek

Two police officers were stabbed on this street by a terror suspect who was later shot 

The suspect originally ran away, but a police car chased him and armed officers shot at him

Police patrol the area when the man stabbed two officers in the Schaerbeek district 

Several terror suspects linked to the coordinated Paris attacks last November were also based in the district.  

The attack came hours after commuters were ordered to leave Brussels Nord Train Station as it was swept for explosives.  

Police searched the station, causing major delays, but found 'nothing untoward'.

The station was re-opened at around 3pm local time.

Belgian counter terrorist prosecutors were investigating a stabbing incident in Brussels today

Police and army personnel were stationed outside the station following a bomb alert 

Commuters were forced to leave the station in the north of the city as officers investigated

Police sources said there was no connection between the stabbing and the bomb scares. 

The same station was evacuated two days ago as officials investigated a suspect package found in a car parked outside. 

Belgium has been on high alert after coordinated suicide bombings at Brussels airport and at Maalbeek metro train station, which left 35 dead and was the deadliest terrorist attack in the country's history.  

In August, a machete-wielding man shouting 'Allahu Akbar' attacked and seriously wounded two police women in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi. The assailant was shot dead.

ISIS claimed responsibility for that attack.

A month later, a man wielding a knife attacked two officers in the Molenbeek area but the officers were wearing bulletproof vests so only sustained bruises. 

Prosecutors said the man of north African origin had no proven link to Islamists.

The incidents took place as Brussels hosted representatives from 70 countries and 25 international organisations to raise billions of dollars in aid for Afghanistan.   

Security was tight for the conference in the EU's headquarters, about two and a half miles from the scene of the knife attack.  

US secretary of state, John Kerry and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon were among those in attendance. 

Police searched the station, causing major delays, but found 'nothing untoward'