Belgian soldiers patrol on Brussels’ Grand Place yesterday after security was tightened in Belgium following the November 13 attacks in Paris.
DPA/AFP/Reuters
Brussels
Brussels police continued yesterday a manhunt for two suspected terrorists wanted in connection with the November 13 Paris terrorist attacks as Belgium’s national security council decided on an extension of a heightened terrorist threat assessment.
The new assessment was made by Belgium’s national crisis centre.
Belgium will keep the highest threat level for Brussels today and will keep the metro as well as schools closed because of a “serious and imminent” threat of co-ordinated, multiple attacks, the country’s prime minister said.
For the rest of the country, a threat level of three on a four-tier scale would remain in place, Prime Minister Charles Michel said.
The city has been on a maximum terror alert since Saturday.
“This danger is real,” Bernard Clerfayt, the mayor of the district of Schaerbeek, told broadcaster RTBF. “We have learnt that two terrorists are in Brussels territory and could commit dangerous acts.”
Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon also referred to “several suspects”.
“It is a threat that goes beyond just that one person,” he said. “We’re looking at more things, that’s why we’ve put in place such a concentration of resources.”
Multiple suspects connected to the bombings and shootings in Paris, which killed 130 people and left 352 injured, had ties to the Belgian capital.
For more than a week, police in Brussels have been searching for Salah Abdeslam, the brother of one of the Paris suicide bombers.
Abdeslam, who lived in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, is suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks before returning to the Belgian capital.
Hamza Attouh told police that he dropped Abdeslam off in Brussels after the attacks.
Attouh also said that Abdeslam might be carrying explosives and had been “very dangerous and seriously angry”, his lawyer told RTBF radio, according to the Belga news agency.
Despite the presence of military in the city’s streets, most people remained calm.
“Life goes on,” the owner of a newspaper kiosk said. He added that he thought the security measures were excessive.
“To close on Saturday is a catastrophe for our business,” said Alain Berlinblau, a member of the inner city’s retail association.
Later yesterday, bars and cafes in central Brussels were asked to close on security grounds.
“We have to do it for the security of our customers,” waitress Lourdes Taipe said.
The historic Grand Place in central Brussels, usually bustling, was virtually empty, with business badly hit in the run-up to Christmas as troops and armed police patrolled.
“A group of 140 called yesterday to cancel a booking. If it continues like this, the Christmas market will be called off with all the impact that could have,” said Patrick, a waiter at one of the many restaurants on the square.
Belgium has urged the public to avoid crowds in the capital, and also closed museums, cinemas and shopping centres. Clubs and venues have cancelled events.
Brussels Chief Rabbi Albert Gigi told Israel’s Army Radio yesterday that the city’s synagogues were shut over the weekend for the first time since World War II.
The city suspended service on the underground rail network on Saturday.
Justice Minister Koen Geens earlier said in a Belga report that he expected the metro to re-open today “if all passes off normally ... We are not going to paralyse Brussels economically”.
Buses, trams and trains continued to provide service in Brussels, with authorities intensifying their checks on passengers.
Extra security was also reported at the nation’s airports and train stations.
With the world on edge over the jihadist threat, US President Barack Obama said the most powerful tool to fight the Islamic State (IS) extremist group was to say “that we’re not afraid”.
In Paris, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a chemical or biological attack “was among the risks” faced but that all possible precautions had been taken.
Belgium and the capital, home to the European Union and Nato, are no strangers to Islamist violence.
Four people were shot dead at the Brussels Jewish museum last year, and in January security forces killed two suspects linked to the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris.
The UN Security Council on Friday authorised nations to “take all necessary measures” to fight jihadist violence after a wave of attacks, including the downing of a Russian aircraft in Egypt with the loss of 224 lives and the storming of a luxury hotel in Mali which left 19 dead.
Obama said yesterday that he would press ahead with a visit to Paris for UN climate talks in December, calling on world leaders to show similar resolve.
“The most powerful tool we have to fight ISIL is to say that we’re not afraid,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Mali attack, in which six Russians died, showed “terrorism knows no borders” and was a global threat which must be confronted “with the broadest international co-operation”.
Moscow announced separately it had killed 11 IS-linked fighters in its volatile North Caucasus region.
French President Francois Hollande next week meets world leaders, including Obama and Putin, as well as Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s David Cameron to discuss what can be done to counter the IS threat.
Defence Minister Le Drian said French jets would be able to launch air strikes on IS targets from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean starting today.
In Turkey, police arrested a Belgian of Moroccan origin, Ahmet Dahmani, 26, who reportedly scouted targets for the Paris attacks which saw gunmen and suicide bombers hit bars, restaurants, a rock concert and the national football stadium.
The suspected ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, died in a massive police raid in Paris on Wednesday along with his cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen, reportedly a one-time party girl who turned to radical Islam about six months ago.
Abaaoud was a notorious Belgian jihadist thought to be fighting in Syria and his presence in Europe has raised troubling questions about a Europe-wide breakdown in intelligence and border security.
