An imam died of smoke inhalation Monday evening in Brussels, the Belgian capital, after a man threw a firebomb through the window of a Shiite mosque, the Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure reported. The mosque was nearly entirely burned down, the Agence France-Presse reported. 

Worshipers were waiting to pray when someone entered with a bag filled with fuel, an eyewitness told a local state broadcaster, according to the BBC. He then flung the bag into the center of the room.  

A crowd of about 50 people gathered and firefighters tried to revive the imam, but he died on site. He was 46.

---

A suspect was caught not far from the mosque, La Derniere Heure reported. A second person was injured.

Belgium has about half a million Muslims out of a population of 11 million, Reuters reported. In December, a gunman killed seven people after shooting into a crowd of Christmas shoppers in Liege, in eastern Belgium.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Soldier accused in Afghan massacre could get death penalty
• Taliban vows 'revenge' after US soldier kills 16 Afghan civilians
• Chavez to undergo radiation therapy
• Mexico police nearly nab drug lord El Chapo

A Flemish nationalist politician in Belgium has launched a new campaign that taps into anxiety about the country’s immigrant Muslim population, while capitalizing on the svelte figure of his 19-year-old daughter.

Filip Dewinter, a leader of the Vlaams Belang — or "Flemish Interest" party of Belgium — is publishing political ads featuring his daughter An-Sofie Dewinter donning a "niqab"— a conservative Islamic covering for women with the cloak thrown back over her shoulders to reveal her bikini-clad body. Across her chest is the message: "Freedom or Islam?" and across her hips, another that reads: "You choose."

The campaign billed as "Women against Islamization" sends a provocative message, in keeping with the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam platform of his Vlaams Belang party. The Vlaams Belang is a reincarnation of a previous political party that was forced by a Belgian court to dissolve because of its racist messages. It advocates strict limits on immigration, and argues that new arrivals should adopt Flemish culture and language.

---

The campaign echoes those by other nationalist groups in Western Europe which have risen on anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim sentiment, said Jonathan Laurence, a Boston College professor and author of the new book, "The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims."

"The far Right in plenty of European countries has engaged in fairly provocative styles of messaging, saying that our country is being overrun by Muslims," said Laurence. "This (campaign) adds a layer of sex appeal," -- a tactic that he says could backfire.

"One interesting thing about something like this is that it will tend to push religious communities closer together because you find this kind of image mixing the sacred and the profane is offensive to other religious groups," said Laurence.

Even though few European Muslims wear the conservative face coverings, Dewinter’s ad campaign will heighten tensions, Laurence predicts.

"You would be very hard-pressed to find European Muslims who would defend the burqa,” said Laurence. "But the more they feel that they are being singled out, fingered as the only source of illiberalism in today’s society, the more likely they are to defend these kinds of practices."

Belgium followed France in putting in place a ban on Muslim "niqab" and like garments in 2011. A similar law is set to go into effect in the Netherlands in 2013. The debate over face coverings has come to symbolize the tensions over Islam in Europe. At the time of Belgium's ban, a BBC report cited legal critics who estimated that only a few dozen women of some 500,000 Muslims in the country actually wore the face coverings.

Belgium — and other European countries — do have Islamic groups that advocate extreme interpretations of the faith. Shariah4 Belgium opened a sharia court in Belgium for moderating disputes among Muslims according to an RT report. Not only did the move put the group on a collision course with right wing politicians like Dewinter, but it "freaked out" other Muslims interviewed for the story.

In January, RT reported, an Antwerp prosecutor recommended Shariah4 Belgium leader Foaud Belkacem be sentenced to a two-year prison term and a fine for inciting hatred and violence against non-Muslims. Dewinter alleged that the Muslim group called for his killing.

"There are movements that are not liberal and do not fit well with Europe," said Laurence. "In some ways the extremists from the far right and religious extremists are a match made in heaven."

An estimated 6 percent of Belgium’s population is Muslim, with most located in major cities.

More on msnbc.com and NBC News

• American aid worker in Libya: US bars my return
• Photoblog: Ice clogs canals of Venice
• Bart Simpson joins Barbie in Iran ban

Kari Huus on Facebook

LIEGE, Belgium - Investigators have found the body of a woman in a shed belonging to the gunman who killed four people and wounded 125 in eastern Belgium on Tuesday.

The body was found following an overnight search of the building, which police said shooter Nordine Amrani had used to grow cannabis.

---

The 33-year-old brought carnage to the eastern city of Liege by hurling grenades and spraying bullets into crowds of Christmas shoppers.

Two boys aged 15 and 17 were killed, along with a 75-year-old woman and a toddler of just 17 months, whom hospital doctors fought for hours to save.

• PhotoBlog: Attacker throws grenades into Belgium city center crowd

It was still unclear what drove Amrani to carry out the attack, and investigators were trying to build a profile of the man.

He was previously jailed for possession of arms and drugs offenses.

On the morning of the killings he had been called in for questioning by police in a sexual abuse case, the Associated Press reported.

Police said the body of his fifth victim was a 45-year-old woman who worked as a cleaner for one of his neighbors.

Prosecutor Cedric Visart de Bocarme told Belgian La Premiere radio station: "A search last night revealed in a warehouse used by the attacker, notably to grow cannabis, the body of a woman killed by the attacker before he went to the Place Saint Lambert.

"The enormous concern we have is how it was possible for someone seemingly sensible and normal to do this. It was a delinquent, someone who had difficulties throughout their life."

Previous conviction
Amrani was freed from jail about a year ago following a 2008 conviction for illegal possession of arms and for growing a huge field of cannabis. A report in Britain's Daily Telegraph said police found 10 firearms and 9,500 gun parts along with 2,800 cannabis plants, but a prison official granted Amrani early release last year.

The report said he was a weapons aficionado and was said to be able to dismantle, repair and put together a number of different weapons but was never linked to any terrorist act or network.

"He has no history of terrorist acts," prosecutor Daniele Reynders told a news conference on Tuesday.

Instead of reporting to the police station as requested on Tuesday, he took a light automatic rifle, a handgun and several grenades and went onto the roof of a bakery in the central Saint-Lambert square before hurling the weapons into the crowd.

How exactly he died was not immediately clear, with some witnesses claiming he turned his revolver on himself while others said one of his grenades appeared to explode prematurely.

Liege's mayor, Willy Demeyer, said the two teenage victims had been taking school exams nearby just before the attack.

At Amrani's most recent address, an apartment block near the scene of the attack, Johan Buron said he had been astonished to learn what his neighbor had done.

"He was calm, every time I met him in the corridor he was very friendly and said 'Hi'," he told Reuters. "If my memory serves me right, he was a welder."

Random killings are rare in Belgium. Most recently, in January 2009, a man stabbed two infants and a woman to death and injured 13 at a nursery in the town of Dendermonde.

Reuters, The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Hunt for terrorists shifts to 'dangerous' North Africa, Panetta says
• US halts $700 million in Pakistan aid, demands action on Taliban
• Chinese artist depicts portraits of corruption
• 4 killed in grenade attack on Belgium market
• New laws protect women from abuse in Pakistan
• Netherlands proposes ritual slaughtering ban

Updated at 6:10 p.m.. ET:

LIEGE, Belgium - A man armed with hand grenades and guns opened fire in the crowded center of this Belgian city on Tuesday, killing four people and wounding at least 122 before taking his own life.

It was not immediately clear what motivated the attack in the busy Place Saint-Lambert, the central entry point to downtown shopping streets in the industrial city in eastern Belgium. The attack ignited a stampede of hundreds, as shoppers fled the explosions and bullets.

Interior Ministry official Peter Mertens said the attack did not involve terrorism but did not explain why he thought that.

---

Belgian officials identified the attacker as Norodine Amrani, 33, a Liege resident who they said had done jail time for offenses involving guns, drugs and sexual abuse.

The dead were two boys, 15 and 17, a 75-year-old woman, and a 2-year-old girl who perished later in the day.

Liege Prosecutor Danielle Reynders said Amrani had been summoned for police questioning on Tuesday but the reason for the questioning was not clear. He still had a number of grenades with him when he died, she said.

Officials said Amrani left his home in Liege with a backpack, armed with hand grenades, a revolve and an FAL assault rifle. He walked alone to the central square, then got onto a platform that gave him an ideal view of the square below, which was bedecked with a huge Christmas tree and crowded with shoppers.

From there, at about 6:30 a.m. ET, Amrani lobbed three hand grenades toward a nearby bus shelter, which serves 1,800 buses a day, then opened fire on the crowd. The explosions sent glass from the bus shelter across a wide area.

PhotoBlog: Attacker throws grenades, kills five in Belgium

Earlier media reports had said as many as three men had launched the midday attack, which left blood splattered across the cobblestone streets of the central square.

Footage from the scene showed people, including a large group of children, fleeing down the streets of the city center — some still carrying shopping bags. Ambulances and police vehicles descended on the area in eastern Belgium.

As police helicopters and ambulances raced to the scene, the Belgian public broadcaster VRT reported that residents were ordered stay in their homes or seek shelter in shops or public buildings.

Another broadcaster, Radio Television Belge Francophone, said all buses had been asked to leave the city center and all shops in the area were closed, some with many customers stranded inside.

'We ran for our lives'
A medical post was set up in the courtyard of the palace of the Prince Bishops court house at the site. Emergency medical teams were called in from as far away as the Netherlands, Mertens said.

VRT Radio spoke with Herve Taveirne from the courthouse into which he had fled to escape the gunfire.

"We were in the courthouse building and were just leaving when we saw someone toss a grenade," Taveirne said. "I grabbed a little boy ... and took him back into the courthouse. Outside the building I heard shooting ... Our lives were in danger. This man was shooting in any direction. We ran for our lives at that point."

The television channel La Une said the attack included the assailant opening fire with a Kalashnikov automatic weapon on a bus in the areas.

An unidentified man who was wounded in the attack told Belgium's VRT television network that "someone threw grenades and fired shots."

Herman Van Rompuy, a former Belgian prime minister who is now president of the European Council, said he was badly shaken by the attack.

"There is no explanation whatsoever," Van Rompuy said. "It leaves me perplexed and shocked."

While officials excluded terrorism as a motive for Amrani's attacks, Europe has experienced several recent terror attacks.

In Italy on Tuesday, a man opened fire in an outdoor market in Florence, killing two vendors from Senegal and wounding three other immigrants before killing himself, authorities said. Investigators identified the attacker as 50-year-old Gianluca Casseri, and RAI state TV said he was known to police for having participated in racist marches by an extreme right-wing group.

In Norway last July, far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik went on a bomb and shooting spree that killed 77 people around Oslo, apparently motivated by a hatred of Muslim immigrants and a deep grudge against the governing Labor Party. A psychiatric evaluation found him criminally insane, which if upheld by the courts means he would end up in compulsory psychiatric care instead of prison.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Hunt for terrorists shifts to 'dangerous' North Africa, Panetta says
• US halts $700 million in Pakistan aid, demands action on Taliban
• Messages deleted by tabloid journalists? Not so fast
• NJ basketball tycoon launches Russia presidency bid
• Nurse who saved hundreds of US soldiers in WWII finally honored
• (Some) Syrians head to the polls

BRUSSELS, Belgium - A nurse who saved the lives of hundreds of American soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge at the end of World War II was given a U.S. award for valor Monday — 67 years late.

Congolese-born Augusta Chiwy, now 93, received the Civilian Award for Humanitarian Service medal from U.S. Ambassador Howard Gutman at a ceremony in the military museum in Brussels.

"She helped, she helped, and she helped," Gutman said at the ceremony. He said the long delay in presenting the award was because it was assumed that Chiwy had been killed when a bomb destroyed her hospital.

---

The Battle of the Bulge was a ferocious encounter in the final stages of World War II. In desperation, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive attack on allied forces in the Ardennes, in southern Belgium. More than 80,000 American soldiers were killed, captured or wounded.

Chiwy had volunteered to assist in an aid station in the town of Bastogne, where wounded and dying U.S. soldiers in their thousands were being treated by a single doctor in December 1944 and January 1945. Chiwy braved the gunfire, helping whoever she could, and saving the lives of hundreds of American GIs.

The Nazis hoped the surprise attack would reach the sea at the Belgian port of Antwerp and cut off the advancing allied armies. Bastogne, a market town that was also a critical road junction, was quickly besieged.

The U.S. troops — led by paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division — found themselves surrounded. But they resisted fiercely, and the key crossroads was never taken.

During the siege, Bastogne was heavily shelled and quickly reduced to ruins. Another Belgian nurse — Chiwy's friend Renee Lemaire — was killed along with about 30 patients when a bomb penetrated a cellar where she was tending to the wounded.

Gutman said the diminutive Chiwy combed battlefields during the battle, often coming under enemy fire, to collect the wounded in the deep snow.

"What I did was very normal," Chiwy said during the ceremony. "I would have done it for anyone. We are all children of God."

But Col. J.P. McGee, who commands a brigade of the 101st Airborne Division based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, said that to the wounded soldiers Chiwy was "a goddess."

"Men lived and families were reunited due to your efforts," he said.

McGee said the army's doctor in Bastogne, John Prior, had joked that the German snipers couldn't hit Chiwy because she was so tiny. But Chiwy, who moved to Belgium from the colony of Congo before the war, responded that they were just bad shots.

McGee also gave Chiwy a letter of appreciation from Gen. David Petraeus, himself a former commander of the 101st Airborne.

After the battle, Chiwy slipped into obscurity, working as a hospital nurse treating spinal injuries. She married a Belgian soldier and had two children.

She was finally located several years ago by a British author and historian, Martin King, who had heard stories about a black nurse at Bastogne.