The level for the whole country was raised a week ago following the Paris attacks to level three out of four, implying a “possible or probable” threat.
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Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon stated that they would evaluate the terror threat level again on Monday.
If people take the terror alert seriously, Brussels will be “shut down tomorrow”, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said.
The official says in an emailed message: “We believe that Dahmani was in contact with the terrorists who perpetrated the Paris attacks”.
Turkish officials said he had arrived at Antalya’s airport on a flight from Amsterdam on November 14.
“We can not give more information…”
The five other attackers who died had links to France and Belgium. The city’s Atomium tourist venue didn’t open on Saturday, while nightclubs and concert venues said they would not open in the evening.
Salah Abdeslam was briefly pulled over by French police near the Belgian border last Saturday morning along with two of those in custody. “It’s normal that there is a certain feeling of fear after what happened in Paris and Bamako”, he said in a reference to al-Qaeda-linked gunmen killing at least 21 people at a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital on Friday.
Abdeslam, whose brother Brahim blew himself up outside a Paris bar, may be equipped with a suicide belt, according to Hamza Attou, one of two suspects charged by Belgian authorities for allegedly helping Abdeslam return to Belgium after the attacks. Abaaoud was killed during a raid that shook the Saint-Denis neighborhood outside Paris and collapsed an entire floor of an apartment building. Seven of the eight people detained in that raid have been released, the Paris prosecutor’s office said Saturday. “A few weapons were found, but no explosives or an explosive belt”, the prosecutor said.
In grieving Paris, citizens defiantly poured into the streets and onto cafe terraces Friday night to mark one week since the carnage with a noisy minute of non-silence as urged by several artists in the country.
France’s Parliament has extended a state of emergency for three months, expanding police powers to carry out arrests and searches and allowing authorities to forbid the movement of persons and vehicles at specific times and places.
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Hollande said he would appeal to world leaders to form a wider coalition to go after ISIS, including in meetings next week with U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
