BRUSSELS: Police officers in Belgium have arrested eight people during counterterrorism raids across the country as part of operations aimed at thwarting possible attacks, the federal prosecutor\u2019s office said Tuesday.
\nAntwerp federal police carried out five searches in Merksem, Borgerhout, Deurne, Sint-Jans-Molenbeek and Eupen on Monday night at the request of an investigating judge. The prosecutor\u2019s office said five people were arrested, but it didn\u2019t give details about what was found.
\n\u201cAt least two of the people involved are suspected of planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Belgium. The target of the attack has not yet been determined,\u201d prosecutors said.
\nMeanwhile, Brussels federal police carried out raids in the nearby localities of Zaventem, Sint-Jans-Molenbeek and Schaerbeek as part of a separate case, and arrested three people.
\n\u201cThese people are also suspected of planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Belgium,\u201d the office said. \u201cThere are links between the two cases, but further investigation will have to reveal the extent to which the two cases were intertwined.\u201d
\nBelgian broadcaster RTBF reported that the Brussels and Antwerp cases initially focused on two young adults suspected of violent radicalism and that investigations revealed links between the two, with potentially dangerous individuals gravitating in their entourage.
\nAccording to the independent center in charge of assessing the terrorism and extremist risk in Belgium, the current threat on a scale from one to four is medium, at level two.
\nThe arrests came as suspected members of a cell that carried out the deadliest peacetime attacks on Belgian soil seven years ago are on trial in Belgium. The defendants face charges including murder, attempted murder and membership, or participation, in the acts of a terrorist group, over the morning rush hour attacks at Belgium\u2019s main airport and on the central commuter line on March, 22, 2016.
\nIn addition to the 32 people who died in Brussels that day, about 900 were injured or suffered mental trauma.
\nAmong the accused is Salah Abdeslam \u2014 the only survivor among the Daesh group extremists who in 2015 struck the Bataclan theater in Paris, city cafes and France\u2019s national stadium. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole over the atrocities in the French capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS: Police officers in Belgium have arrested eight people during counterterrorism raids across the country as part of operations aimed at thwarting possible attacks, the federal prosecutor\u2019s office said Tuesday. Antwerp federal police carried out five searches in Merksem, Borgerhout, Deurne, Sint-Jans-Molenbeek and Eupen on Monday night at the request of an investigating judge. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-322366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n