Updated 11.09pm

A man was shot in the centre of Brussels this evening after attacking two soldiers with a knife, Brussels prosecutors said.

The man was critically wounded and later died in hospital, they said. The soldiers were lightly wounded in the attack, one in the face and the other in the hand.

"With the identity that we currently have, it is a 30-year-old man who is not known for terrorist activities," a spokeswoman for the prosecution service said.

Prosecutors however said they were treating the event as an attempted terrorist murder.

A spokeswoman for federal prosecutors said the man had shouted "Allahu Akbar" (Arabic for "God is Great") twice during the attack.

Prosecutors however said they were treating the event as an attempted terrorist murder.

In addition to regular police, Brussels streets are being patrolled by soldiers due to a heightened security threat level in the wake of militant attacks in Paris and the Belgian capital in 2015 and 2016.

In June, troops shot dead a suspected suicide bomber in Brussels' central train station but there were no other casualties, in what authorities treated a terrorist incident.

A policeman reacts on the scene. Photo: Eric Vidal/Reuters