Nov 25, 2015- The Brussels metro and schools are due to reopen after they were shut four days ago in a security crackdown following the Paris attacks. Belgian soldiers and police continued to patrolling the city’s streets, guarding the reopened metro stations and schools.
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The Brussels prosecutor also gave details of two people previously charged with terrorist offences and said that a fifth, unnamed, person had been charged on Tuesday.
“The detonating device on the suicide belt had been disconnected, investigators say, suggesting that Abdeslam deliberately refused the kamikaze fate of seven of the other attackers, including his brother, Ibrahim”, according to the Independent.
After the deadly Paris attacks, Belgium has issued an global arrest warrant for a “dangerous” man seen driving with suspect Salah Abdeslam two days before the massacre in the French capital. That was prompted by fears of more attacks like the one carried out in Paris on November 13 by French and Belgian militants.
“The geolocalisation of Abdelhamid Abaaoud’s alleged phone between 22:28 pm and 0:28 confirms a presence in the 12th, 11th, and 10th districts, and notably near the Bataclan concert hall”, Mr Molins said.
Prosecutors say there is evidence that Abaaoud was planning a later attack on the La Defense business district.
Henry Samuel in Paris writes that the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks returned to the Bataclan concert venue while a police operation to kill the remaining gunmen was still underway, the Paris prosecutor has revealed.
A level three alert – which brings Brussels in line with the rest of Belgium – means there is a “serious, possible and probable” threat of a terror strike.
On Tuesday, an arrest warrant was issued in Belgium for a man named Mohamed Abrini over the attacks.
The threat level for Brussels had been raised on Saturday as police searched across Belgium for a suspect in the Paris terrorist attacks, in which 130 people were killed.
France has taken 165 people into custody and indicted 124 since the attacks, the country’s interior minister said on Tuesday.
He also returned to cafes and restaurants targeted in the attacks that have been claimed by the Islamic State group.
Authorities said the device, which did not have a detonator, was found in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge.
Businesses in Brussels were starting to feel the pain, and while few question the government’s need to protect the public from a potential attack, some shop-owners said the shutdown was too extreme. Police found two handguns and traces of blood in his vehicle, the prosecutor said.
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On Tuesday, a judge handed down terrorism-related charges against Jawad Bendaoud, the only person so far in France known to be facing such charges directly linked to the November 13 attack.
