Belgium put the capital Brussels on maximum security alert on Saturday, shutting the metro and warning people to avoid crowds because of a "serious and imminent" threat of coordinated, multiple attacks by militants. A week after Paris bombings and shootings carried out by Islamic State militants, of whom one suspect from Brussels is at large, Brussels was placed on the top level "four" in the government's threat scale after a meeting of police, justice and intelligence officials. Soldiers were on guard in parts of Brussels, a city of 1.2 million people and home to institutions of the European Union and the headquarters of NATO. Belgian police officers escort students from Brussels university ULB/VUB at the occasion of the Saint Verhaegen day, the founder of the Brussels university, after security was tightened in Belgium following the fatal attacks in Paris on Friday, in Brussels, Belgium, November 20, 2015 | Source: Reuters

Belgium at heart of Paris attack probe

Belgium has been at the heart of investigations into the Paris attacks - which included suicide bombers targeting a France-Germany soccer match - after the links to Brussels, and the poor district of Molenbeek in particular, emerged.

Fugitive suspected militant Salah Abdeslam, 26, slipped back home to Brussels from Paris shortly after the attacks, in which his elder brother Brahim blew himself up at a cafe. Fears of the risks he still poses prompted the cancellation last week of an international friendly soccer match in Brussels against Spain.

A second man from Molenbeek, Bilal Hadfi, was also among the Paris suicide bombers.


Three people detained in Brussels are now facing terrorism charges. Federal prosecutors said on Saturday that weapons had been found at the home of a person charged on Friday.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon told reporters he wanted a register of everyone living in Molenbeek because it was not clear at present who was at each address, a process local officials had already started.

EU interior and justice ministers in Brussels on Friday pledged solidarity with France and agreed a series of new measures on surveillance, border checks and gun control. [ID:nL8N13F2K1]

French authorities have said the attacks were planned in Brussels by a local man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28, who fought for Islamic State in Syria and was killed in a police siege of an apartment in the Paris suburb of St. Denis on Wednesday.

Abaaoud's fingerprints were found on one of three AK47 assault rifles in a car left in eastern Paris, a source close to the investigation said, though it was not clear if he took part in the attacks or had just handled the weapon at some point.

The last time any part of Belgium was put on maximum alert was in May 2014 when an Islamist gunman shot dead four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. At that time, Jewish schools, synagogues and other institutions were put on level four.

The capital as a whole was last at the level four for about a month at the end of 2007 and the start of 2008, when authorities intercepted a plot to free convicted Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi. Brussels' New Year fireworks display was cancelled.

Trabelsi was sentenced in Belgium in 2003 to 10 years for attempting to blow up a Belgian military base that houses U.S. soldiers. He was extradited to the United States in 2013.

Turkish police arrested a Belgian man of Moroccan origin on suspicion of having scouted out the Paris target sites.

A ban on demonstrations in the Paris area was extended on Saturday until Nov. 30, while a night curfew was imposed in parts of Sens, a town southeast of Paris, after raids there.