Belgium holds 12 after anti-terror raids

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BRUSSELS, June 18, (Agencies): Belgian police arrested 12 suspects in a major anti-terror operation overnight amid security alerts in Belgium and France around the Euro 2016 soccer tournament and just three months after Islamist bombers wrought carnage in Brussels.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel chaired a meeting of the government’s security council — which includes the ministers of defence, foreign affairs, home affairs and justice — on Saturday after the raids and said soccerrelated events would go on as planned with extra security measures. “We want to continue living normally,” Michel told a news conference. “The situation is under control.” “We are extremely vigilant, we are monitoring the situation hour by hour and we will continue with determination the fight against extremism, radicalisation and terrorism,” he said.

Earlier on Saturday the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said 40 people had been taken in for questioning and 12 among them were arrested “in connection with a criminal investigation concerning terrorism.” “The investigating judge will decide on their possible detention later today. The investigatory results necessitated an immediate intervention. The investigation continues,” it said in a statement. No weapons or explosives had been found during the overnight searches, which also involved 152 garage lockups.

Flemish public broadcaster VTM said the people arrested overnight were suspected of planning an attack in Brussels this weekend during one of Belgium’s soccer matches. Areas where fans watch matches in Brussels were potential targets, as well as other crowded areas such as shopping centres and stations, Belgian media reported. The Belgian crisis centre in charge of coordinating security responses decided not to raise the security level to the maximum that would indicate an imminent threat of attack, Michel said.

Public broadcaster RTBF said Belgium’s crisis centre on Friday had placed several government ministers, including Michel, under heightened protection. Michel said extra security measures had been taken for some people but did not name them. With the Euro 2016 soccer tournament underway in neighbouring France, Europe is on high security alert.

Islamist suicide bombers killed 32 people in Brussels in March following attacks in Paris last November in which 130 people died. Investigators have found links between the Brussels and Paris attackers, some of whom were based in Belgium.

On Monday a French police couple were stabbed to death outside their home in Paris in an attack claimed by Islamic State. In a video posted on social networks, the attacker, Larossi Abballa, linked it to the soccer tournament, saying: “The Euros will be a graveyard.”

Judge
A spokeswoman for Paris public prosecutor Francois Molins said two people close to Abballa would meet a judge on Saturday while a third one was released. Separately, a judiciary source told Reuters on Friday a 22-year-old man suspected of planning attacks on tourists had been jailed on terrorism charges after being arrested at the start of the week.

On Wednesday Belgian police received an anti-terror alert warning that a group of Islamic State fighters had recently left Syria en route for Europe planning attacks in Belgium and France, security officials said. Belgian police staged sweeping nationwide anti-terror raids and arrested 12 people, officials said Saturday, as security for 30 VIPs was reinforced over fears of an “imminent” attack.

Prime Minister Charles Michel called a national security council meeting for midday (1000 GMT) 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 Saturday.

Boxes
Forty people were initially held and 152 garage boxes searched, they said. 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 were found.” Flemish commercial broadcaster VTM reported that it was linked to a threat linked to Belgium’s fixture against Ireland due to be held Saturday at 15:00pm (1300 GMT) in Bordeaux, France.

The channel said the threat was against targets in Belgium, possibly fans watching the game on television in crowded places. A judge will decide later whether to detain those who have been arrested, none of whom have been named. 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 more. 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 hundreds more.

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 were closely associated with the perpetrators of both attacks. 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 dramatic 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 part of the country’s nuclear industry.

France, which is hosting the Euro 2016 football championships, 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 already dogged by the threat of terrorism. Belgian media reported on Wednesday that police had warned that Islamic State group (IS) fighters had recently left Syria to carry out attacks. “They would separate into two groups, one for Belgium, the other for France, to attack in pairs.

According to the information received these people are in possession of the necessary armament and their actions are imminent,” an official document revealed by the La Derniere Heure newspaper stated. Meanwhile, a Belgian man has been arrested and charged in connection with the Islamic State suicide bombings that killed 32 people in Brussels in March, prosecutors said late Friday. The 30-year-old, named as Youssef E.A, is one of several charged over the March 22 attacks that struck Brussels airport and a city metro station. The man has been charged with “participation in the activities of a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempts to terrorist murders, as a perpetrator, coperpetrator of accomplice”, Belgium’s federal prosecutor said.

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