Belgian authorities have arrested eight people during counterterrorism sweeps that took place in Brussels, the port city of Antwerp, and the border town of Eupen as a part of investigations into a potential jihadist plot to carry out terrorist attacks, the federal prosecutor’s office announced on Tuesday, March 28th.
The arrests, which according to the federal prosecutor’s office were part of two separate police investigations, happened on Monday evening and saw three in Brussels and five in Antwerp, some of whom are known for Islamic extremism, deprived of their liberty and taken in for questioning, the French-language Belgian newspaper Le Soir reports.
At the request of an investigating judge, federal judicial police in Antwerp conducted five searches in Merksem, Borgerhout, Deurne, Molenbeek, and Eupen. In a statement that followed the arrests, prosecutors involved in the case said: “At least two of the individuals involved are suspected of planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Belgium. The target of the attack has not yet been determined.”
Meanwhile, federal judicial police in Brussels, as a part of a separate case, raided locations in the localities of Zaventem and the Brussels municipalities of Molenbeek and Schaerbeek, arresting three people.
“These people are also suspected of planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Belgium. There are links between the two cases, but further investigation will have to reveal the extent to which the two cases were intertwined,” a statement from the federal prosecutor’s office says.
The suspects “seemed determined to carry out a terrorist attack,” a source close to the investigation told the Belgian broadcaster RTBF.
Of the eight people arrested during Monday’s raids, one is known to authorities for previous terror-related offenses. Two years ago, the young man was arrested on suspicion of attacking the police.
Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) lauded the efforts of the security and intelligence services and the federal prosecutor’s office, saying “they acted very efficiently. This shows that we in Belgium have learned from previous attacks, by sharing information and working together to ensure that these types of attacks can be thwarted.”
The Coordination Unit for Threat Assessment (OCAD), the government body which monitors and assesses terrorist threats in Belgium, says that the overall threat level remains at two (out of four levels), assuring the public that “authorities have everything under control at the moment.” The situation, however, “is being closely monitored,” the body said.
