Belgium police arrest 12 suspects in crackdown over terrorism threat

BRUSSELS
Belgian police staged nationwide anti-terrorism raids and arrested 12 people as security for 30 VIPs was reinforced over fears of an attack.

Prime Minister Charles Michel called a security council meeting for midday to discuss the threat, a government source said.

Dozens of searches were carried out across Belgium overnight in a case that needed an immediate intervention, federal prosecutors said.

Forty people were initially held and 152 garage boxes searched.

The raids took place in 16 communes in Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia and passed off without incident, they said in a statement, adding that “until now no arms or explosives have been found”.

Flemish commercial broadcaster VTM reported that the threat was linked to Belgium’s football fixture against Ireland in the ongoing Euro tournament to be held on Saturday in Bordeaux, France.

The channel said the threat was against targets in Belgium, possibly fans watching the game on television in crowded places.

Belgium is still reeling from the Islamic State suicide bombings at Brussels airport and on the city’s metro on March 22, which killed 32 people and wounded hundreds.

They came five months after jihadists, many of them from Brussels, carried out gun and bombing attacks in Paris on November 13, killing 130 people and wounding many.

The latest raids targeted several areas tied to the attacks of November 13 and March 22.

Officers in Flanders moved on the town of Zaventem, close to Brussels national airport while there were raids in the Brussels suburbs of Molenbeek, Schaarbeek and Forest.

Molenbeek is notorious for being a hotbed of Islamic extremism where Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the 10-man jihadist team that attacked Paris, hid out for months until his arrest on March 18.

One of the searches in Wallonia was conducted in the area of Fleurus, close to Charleroi airport — the country’s second international air hub — and a region that also hosts some of the country’s nuclear reactors.

France, which is hosting the tournament, is on maximum alert after an assailant previously convicted for jihadism killed a police officer and his partner on Monday.

The latest raids have raised tensions in Belgium, which is dogged by threats of terrorism.