Seizure of video with Paris links alarms officials

PARIS — A suspect linked to the Nov. 13 Paris attackers was found with surveillance footage of a high-ranking Belgian nuclear official, Belgian authorities acknowledged Thursday, raising fears the Islamic State is trying to obtain radioactive material for use in a terrorist attack.

The existence of the footage, which police in Belgium seized Nov. 30, was confirmed by Thierry Werts, a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor, after being reported in the Belgian daily newspaper La Dernière Heure.

The news set off an immediate outcry among Belgian lawmakers, who charged that they and the country had been misled about the extent of the potential threats to the country’s nuclear facilities, as well as about the ambitions of the terrorist network linked to the Islamic State that used Belgium to plot the Paris attacks, which killed 130 people.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the State Department also confirmed Thursday a report by Reuters that radioactive material had gone missing since November in Iraq, where the Islamic State controls broad areas of territory, adding to fears the group might be able to acquire material for an attack with newly disconcerting dimensions.

Belgian news media, citing sources close to the investigation, said the surveillance footage of the Belgian nuclear official had been retrieved from the home of Mohamed Bakkali, who was arrested after the attacks and is in detention on charges of terrorist activity and murder.