Belgian police said Thursday that they have detained six people in an alleged connection to terror plot targeting Brussels on New Year’s Eve.
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A judge would decide later on Thursday whether they could be held further.
On Thursday, a hearing for two men identified as Mohamed Karay, 27, and Said Souati, 30, accused of plotting a New Year’s Eve terrorist attack, was scheduled. In a press release, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Workplace stated no weapons or explosives have been present in Wednesday.’s search, still in that “about 10 cellphones” have been seized & are being examined.
The New Year’s Eve fireworks display is being canceled in Belgium’s capital due to threats of an extremist attack.
Police arrested the suspects during a series of raids in the Brussels suburbs, one of which was Molenbeek, used as a base by Islamic radicals who carried out attacks in Paris in November, the BBC reported Thursday.
More than 100,000 people turned out to welcome in the New Year in Brussels in 2014, however “in these circumstances, we can’t check everyone”, Mayor Yvan Mayeur said.
Officials in Paris have also canceled all official New Year’s festivities.
In New York City, though, the party will go on, with an increased security detail that includes 6,000 police officers being deployed to Times Square, where one million revelers are expected.
US Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. of the Western District of NY had a message for others who may be planning to provide support ot ISIS: “You will be caught, you will be prosecuted, and you will be punished”.
The two are both members of a motorcycle club called the Kamikaze Riders, according to Belgian media.
Ever since the terror attacks in Paris past year – which also involved radical Muslims from Belgium – Brussels has been on high alert.
The attacks killed 130 people and injured hundreds, prompting officials to raise the terrorist alert level for all of the Belgian capital to its maximum level. Authorities do not have any evidence linking the biker gang and the terror suspects arrested for the Paris attacks, but reports say the two incidents highlight how Belgium has become a hotbed for Islamic terrorism.
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Yesterday’s decision came a day after two people were arrested on suspicion of preparing attacks on “emblematic sites” in Brussels during the celebrations, and after another man was questioned over links to November’s Paris attacks.
