BRUSSELS // Belgian authorities arrested 12 people and raided hundreds of homes and vehicles early on Saturday in a major antiterrorism investigation which they said required "immediate intervention."
The mass raids took place as the country prepared to watch Belgium's match against the Republic of Ireland in the euro 2016 football championships. With many parties planned around the live event, prime minister Charles Michel promised the nation would remain "extremely vigilant, hour by hour". The terror level would remain at the second-highest level, he said, — as it has since the March 22 attacks on the Brussels metro and airport which killed 32 — meaning a threat is "possible and likely."
The prime minister declined to elaborate on the nature of the threat but it believed that festivities around the football match could be likely targets. "It will be the case in the coming hours that we will take additional and adapted measures," he said, after a meeting with the nation's security council. Interior minister Jan Jambon added, "It is not over. We remain under terror alert 3, it means that something is still up."
The federal prosecutor's office said that homes and 152 lock-up garages were searched in 16 municipalities, mostly in and around Brussels. No arms or explosives were found but 40 people were taken in for interrogation, of whom 12 were arrested.
The prosecutor's statement said that "the results of the investigation necessitated an immediate intervention," indicating a violent attack was likely planned in the near future. Fans arriving at a big-screen showing of the game in central Brussels were subjected to toughened security checks and police scrutiny. Since Friday evening, several members of Belgium's federal government, including the prime minister, and other VIPs have had heightened security protection but the night-time raids were not linked to the threat to politicians.
Belgium is still reeling from the ISIL suicide bombings at Brussels airport and on the city's metro on March 22. They came five months after extremists, many of them from Brussels, carried out gun and bombing attacks in Paris on November 13, killing 130 people and wounding hundreds more. The Saturday raids targeted several areas connected to the March and November attacks, including Zaventem, close to Brussels airport, and the Brussels suburbs of Molenbeek, Schaarbeek and Forest. Molenbeek in particular is notorious for being a hotbed of extremism. Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the 10-man team of fanatics that carried out the Paris attack was able to hide there for months until his dramatic arrest on March 18. On Friday, a Belgian citizen, identified only as Youssef E.A., born on Aug. 4, 1985, was arrested and detained in connection with the March attacks, said the federal prosecutor.
One of the searches in Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium, 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.
Tensions were raised in Belgium following the murder of a policeman and his partner in neighbouring France on Monday.
* Associated Press
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