Belgian raids reinforce fears of new terror attacks in Europe

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/belgian-plot-fears-jihadist-threat-europe

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Thirteen jihadist suspects are in detention and two others are dead after one of the biggest counter-terror operations mounted in Belgium foiled a sophisticated plot to kill police, according to authorities.

Five suspects faced charges of taking part in “terrorist activities” on Friday evening, but two were conditionally released.

Coming on top of the atrocities in Paris last week, the operations in Belgium and France have reinforced fears that radicalised European Muslims returning from the war in Syria are preparing a series of outrages in Europe. Senior EU security officials met in Brussels on Friday to come up with new counter-terror measures to be put to an EU summit next month.

The Belgian government announced 12 measures to combat the threat of attacks. “Vigilance, but no need for panic,” said the Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel.

Following a brief gun battle on Thursday evening that left two alleged militants dead in the eastern town of Verviers, Eric van der Sypt, the spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office, said: “There were plans to assassinate police on the streets. It could have been hours and certainly no more than a day or two [before the attacks occurred].”

The raids in Verviers and in and around Brussels resulted in a haul of police uniforms, forged identification documents, substantial amounts of money, four Kalashnikovs, handguns, a knife, ammunition, explosives and communications equipment.

Thirteen arrests were made at different locations in Belgium, and a further two people were detained in France at Belgium’s request. All were implicated in the same plot to kill police, the prosecutor’s office said.

“We’re pleased with the outcome in that we arrested a lot of terrorists. We gave an important blow to terrorism in Belgium,” said Van der Sypt.

On Friday morning the prosecutor’s office said all 15 were detained as terrorism suspects. But by Friday night only three had been remanded in custody. Two of those also accused of terrorism activity were freed conditionally.

The authorities said many of those arrested, and the two killed in Verviers, had recently been fighting in Syria. None of those arrested nor the two dead men were formally identified.

The two men who were killed when police stormed a flat were named by local media and were said to be well-known militants in the town.

But on Friday night, citing police sources, De Standaard newspaper said the two were not resident in Verviers and had been using the flat raided by police as a safe house.

Another man who was hit in the abdomen in the shootout and then arrested denied he had anything to do with terrorism. His mother and family members were also briefly detained. But he was among the three remanded.

He was named on Belgian websites as Marouane E. His lawyer, Didier de Quévy, said the suspect had no knowledge of terrorism plans, had never been to Syria, had no criminal record and had been at the scene of the shootout in connection with drugs.

The magistrate in charge of the terror investigation, Isabelle Panou, ordered the man to be held in custody, possibly facing five terrorism-related charges.

Most of those arrested were Belgian nationals, including the two in France. With Belgium on its second highest state of alert and following the Paris attacks that included the murder of four people at a kosher supermarket, the country’s Jewish community was acutely on edge. The main Flemish city of Antwerp boasts a large, thriving Jewish community, the only one left on the continent speaking traditional Yiddish.

The main Jewish schools and synagogues were closed in Brussels and Antwerp on Friday, and Brussels’ Jewish radio station halted broadcasting for the first time in more than three decades.

Avraham Gigi, a rabbi and Jewish community leader, deplored the shutdown of Jewish institutions. “Today we closed synagogues and schools. This shows that there is fear … It’s as if we’ve submitted to what’s happening,” he told Israeli radio. “This is a big mistake. For all this time, despite all the problems that we had, we were proud that all the Jewish institutions were open and working. We were not deterred by events.”

It was clear that the investigation and surveillance of the suspects were only a few weeks old – Van der Sypt described the operation as having lasted weeks rather than months. The investigation was continuing, but he said: “We’ve arrested the people we wanted to arrest.”

Michel, the prime minister, announced tightened counter-terrorism measures, including deploying the army if needed on internal security duties. “The army is available to guarantee security,” he said.

He announced 12 measures to tackle terrorism and radicalism. Travelling abroad for militant purposes will be criminalised and the legal scope for withdrawing citizenship will be extended. Identity cards and passports could be confiscated for at least three months and assets of suspects could be frozen.

Rules decided last year on “foreign fighters” will be tightened and simplified, and prison reforms will be introduced after the growing realisation across Europe that jails are becoming a place of radicalisation for incarcerated young Muslims. There were also unspecified reforms and greater powers for the security and intelligence services.