Police: Plot foiled within hours
BELGIAN investigators said a plot to murder police officers across the country had been foiled “within hours or days” of being launched by raids in which two Islamist gunmen were killed.
Fifteen suspects were in custody yesterday, they said, after a dozen raids around Brussels and in Verviers, the eastern town where two men believed to have fought in Syria were shot dead on Thursday after opening fire on police with assault weapons.
Two of those under arrest were seized in France, but state prosecutors said they still had no evidence of a link between the Belgians and Islamists who killed 17 people in Paris Belgian detectives hold 15 suspects in custody following dozens of raids last week at a Jewish store and satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
With security tightened across Europe, and other arrests in France and also in Germany on Friday, a man with a military weapon took hostages at post office near Paris. The incident, which ended with his surrender, unfolded after Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the city to offer US solidarity in combating terrorists.
In Belgium, Prime Minister Charles Michel urged people not to panic, saying authorities believed their actions had thwarted an imminent attack.
Home to half a million Muslims, or five percent of the population, Belgium believes some 300 citizens have fought in Syria – the highest rate per head in Europe. Security was tight at public buildings in the capital and at police stations. The army provided 150 troops to bolster police, who were instructed not to patrol alone.
At the Verviers apartment where the two still unidentified gunmen died, security forces found police uniforms as well as four AK-47 rifles.
Officials declined comment on reports of threats to behead a policeman but said the targets were all over the country.
“This group was on the point of carrying out terrorist attacks aiming to kill police officers in the streets and in police stations,” state prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt told a news conference.
They were set to act “in the next hours or days”.
Of the 15 people detained, one had been with the dead gunmen in Verviers, a struggling textile town near the German border, and two were held in France at Belgium’s request.
The other 12 were seized around Brussels, most in Molenbeek, home to many poor descendants of North Africans.
A government plan to combat violence by those returning from Syria includes a move to strip those coming back of travel documents, as well as measures to improve intelligence and persuade people to forsake groups like Islamic State. In Verviers, Muslims attending Friday prayers distanced themselves from terrorists but had few ideas of how to combat radicalisation.
“Who can defend against this? Who can defend against youngsters who in some weeks, some months become radicalised?” asked local imam Franck Hensch.
“The internet is the main source of radicalisation. How can we act? Sadly, I don’t have a solution and I don’t think the authorities have one either.”
Belgian officials say their investigation into the group began several weeks ago, before the Charlie Hebdo bloodshed, and they believe the cell was acting without international links.
Separately, Belgian investigators have been interrogating a man suspected of supplying weapons to Amedy Coulibaly, the Frenchman who killed hostages last week at the Jewish grocery.