Brussels on Lockdown Amid Serious & Immediate Threat

[Berean]

BREAKING: BRUSSELS ON LOCKDOWN AT “THREAT LEVEL FOUR” AMID "SERIOUS AND IMMINENT THREAT”

[schwartzie]

Brussels metro shut as Belgian capital put on maximum alert

And the jihad marches on — while Western elites argue in its defense. The Democrats are burying themselves on this.

Brussels metro shut as Belgian capital put on maximum alert
BRUSSELS | By Philip Blenkinsop

Belgium raised the alert status for its capital Brussels to the highest level on Saturday, shutting the metro and warning the public to avoid crowds because of a “serious and imminent” threat of an attack.

A week after the Paris attacks carried out by Islamic State militants, of whom one suspect from Brussels is at large and said by authorities to be highly dangerous, the city was placed on the top level “four” in the government’s threat scale after a meeting of top ministers, police and security services.

“The advice for the population is to avoid places where a lot of people come together like shopping centres, concerts, events or public transport stations wherever possible,” a spokesman for the government’s crisis centre said.

He declined to say what specifically prompted the new alert.

A statement on the centre’s website said it had recommended closing the underground rail network until Sunday and the municipal transport authority tweeted that stations on the four main metro lines were closed “by order of the police”.

The crisis centre website said it was calling on local authorities to cancel large events, urge people to avoid crowds, postpone soccer matches, close the Brussels metro for the weekend and stepping up the military and police presence.

Suspected militant Salah Abdeslam, 26, returned home to Brussels from Paris after the attacks, when his elder brother Brahim blew himself up at a cafe.

Fears of the risk he still poses prompted the cancellation last week of an international friendly soccer match in Brussels against Spain. The crisis centre said weekend games in the top two professional divisions should now be postponed.

The alert level for the whole country was raised following the Paris attacks to level three out of four, implying a “possible or probable” threat. Previously, only certain sites, such as the U.S. embassy, were at level three.

Belgium, and its capital in particular, have been at the centre of investigations into the Paris attacks – which included suicide bombers targeting a France-Germany soccer match – after the links to Brussels emerged. Three people detained in Brussels are facing terrorism charges.

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 the siege of an apartment in the Paris suburb of St. Denis on Wednesday.

Salah Abdeslam, who was from the same neighbourhood and is said by officials to have known Abaaoud in prison, was pulled over three times by French police but not arrested as he was driven back to Brussels early last Saturday by two of the men now in custody. As well as Abdeslam’s brother, a second man from Brussels, Bilal Hadfi, was also among the Paris suicide bombers.

The crisis centre spokesman declined to say what had led to the status change because investigations were proceeding.

“We cannot give more information… The work of federal prosecutors is still going on,” he said, adding the government was assessing what extra security measures to take. Soldiers are already on guard in certain parts of Brussels, including at the institutions of the European Union headquartered in the city.

Brussels is also home to the headquarters of NATO.

The last time any part of the country was put on maximum alert was in May 2014 when a 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’ traditional 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.

The government’s four-level alert system has been in place since 2006.

link

[Honoria]

Brussels Officials Extend Lockdown Amid Terror-Attack Fears
Natalia Drozdiak
Updated Nov. 22, 2015 2:14 p.m. ET

BRUSSELS—Belgian officials extended a maximum terror alert for Brussels until Monday afternoon, prolonging the city’s lockdown after officials warned of an imminent coordinated attack involving weapons and bombs.

“I confirm, as I did yesterday, that what we fear is attacks similar to what happened in Paris,” Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said.

Officials earlier this weekend first raised the alert level after authorities developed information that an attack similar to those that shook Paris on Nov. 13, killing 130 people, was potentially imminent.

On Sunday, Mr. Michel said that imminent threat was still there. He said there were concerns that suspects could launch several offensives in several places at the same time and that likely targets would be crowded areas such as shopping malls or public transportation.

Belgian officials over the weekend deployed troops, shut the city’s metro system and entreated stores and cafes to close, after raising the security threat level for the city to four, its maximum level.

Mr. Michel said elementary schools, high schools and universities would all remain closed Monday, and the city’s metro system would remain shut until Monday afternoon.

Mr. Michel said authorities would reassess the threat level on Monday afternoon.

Belgian authorities over the past week have raided residences across Brussels in their probe for more clues about some of the suspected Paris attackers, who appear to have planned that onslaught in Belgium.

Authorities are hunting for Salah Abdeslam , 26 years old, who is suspected of renting a car used in the Paris attacks.

Belgian prosecutors on Friday said one person had been charged in connection with the attacks and had been placed in custody. Prosecutors said they found weapons, but no explosives, after authorities searched the person’s home.

In the raid, an official said authorities found an automatic weapon, another gun and a type of paintball belt that terrorists have in the past used to create suicide vests.

Prosecutors said the arrest was directly related to the Paris attacks but declined to provide more details about whether the arrest or the findings in the house-search contributed to the elevated terror threat.

A U.S. official said both French and American experts helped examine the evidence gathered in the various Belgian raids over the last week, with a focus not just on catching Mr. Abdeslam, but also on trying to break up any other attacks being plotted.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon in part attributed the elevated alert level and stepped-up police activity to the search for multiple terrorism suspects. He said the threat to Belgium was broader than the manhunt for a suspect involved in the Paris attacks.

“It’s understood that there were several suspects—that’s also why [we called for] a big concentration of force,” Mr. Jambon told VRT news, a Belgian television station.

Two other men, Hamza Attou and Mohamed Amri, were arrested after driving Mr. Abdeslam back to Belgium from Paris. One of the men said he thought Mr. Abdeslam may have been wearing explosives and was ready to detonate himself when they picked him up in Paris, his lawyer told Belgian television station RTBF.

Mr. Abdeslam “was in Paris to finish the job,” Mr. Jambon said. “Why that didn’t go through, we don’t know, but it was a man who was prepared for a suicide mission.”

But Mr. Jambon said the threat of a follow-up attack to Paris wouldn’t necessarily end if Mr. Abdeslam were captured.

“Unfortunately, it’s a threat that goes beyond just that individual,” he said.

Authorities are searching for specific people in all countries in Europe, including in France and Belgium, Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said in a Sunday interview with Belgian television station RTBF.

Turkish authorities on Saturday arrested three alleged Islamic State members, including a Belgian national suspected of ties to the Paris attackers, an official briefed on the matter said.

The impact of the raised terror alert—with instructions by officials to close some shops and cafes—was less noticeable on Sunday, when most businesses in the capital are typically closed anyway.

But as the lockdown stretches into the workweek, the security threat could start to impact the economy, if stores stay shut and commuters depending on public transport can’t get to work.

link