The four young people, three minors “in their late teens” and an 18-year-old young man, were arrested during searches carried out in Brussels, Ninove, Charleroi and Liège according to the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office.
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Belgian police arrested three people on Sunday March 3, suspected of having exchanged messages around a project “terrorist attack”, the federal prosecutor in charge of the investigation confirmed to AFP. The four young people, three minors “late adolescence” and a young man of 18, were arrested during searches carried out in Brussels, Ninove, Charleroi and Liège, said the spokesperson for the prosecution, Eric Van Der Sypt. “They are suspected of planning a terrorist attack in Belgium”he added.
No weapons or explosives were found. Police seized mobile phones and laptops for analysis, he added, confirming information from Belgian media RTBF and HLN. According to RTBF, Sunday’s arrests stem from a police operation aimed at identifying people “potentially violent and suspected of being linked to Islamist extremism“The four suspects are currently being questioned and an investigating judge will have to determine what action to take in the case.
The Belgian authorities have remained on alert since the jihadist attacks of 2016 perpetrated by suicide bombers which left 32 dead in explosions at the Brussels airport and in the city’s metro. Last October, a Tunisian shot dead two Swedish football fans in Brussels before being fatally shot by police.