Belgian police on Tuesday arrested two other people suspected of planning terrorist attacks in Brussels during the New Year’s celebrations.
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Law enforcement officials said there is no known connection between the two investigations, but they highlight the role of Belgium as a hotbed of Islamic radicalism in Europe. On Thursday, a judge ordered them held for another month.
Turkish authorities said their festivities would go ahead as planned, despite the detention of two men suspected of being Islamic State militants planning suicide bombings. On Wednesday, a source close to the French investigation confirmed a report that said at least one man was suspected of having coordinated the attacks by mobile phone from Belgium as they were being carried out.
This latest arrest happens amid heightened fears of potential New Year’s Eve terror attacks.
Brussels officials were sufficiently anxious about the remaining risks that Mayor Yvane Mayeur announced that a New Year’s fireworks display and related festivities in the city centre were cancelled.
Molenbeek is home to the Paris attacks fugitive Salah Abdeslam and has served in the past decades as a haven for jihadists.
Paris has also cancelled its annual fireworks display on the Champs-Élysées and 11,000 police, soldiers and firefighters will be on guard in the city.
Nine people in Belgium had already been arrested in connection with the attacks, in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more were injured.
About 10 cellphones were seized in Thursday’s arrest, but no explosives or weapons were found.
Two of the Paris suicide bombers, Brahim Abdeslam and Bilal Hadfi, had been living in Belgium.
The alleged ringleader of bloody terrorist attacks in Paris last November, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was a Belgian national and grew up in the poor Brussels district of Molenbeek.
The terror threat dominated President Hollande’s televised New Year message.
“There will be a tremendous number of officers that you will see, there will be many officers you won’t see”, said New York Mayor Bill De Blasio at a press conference this week.
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A Home Office spokesman said: “Following the recent attacks in Paris, we took the decision to provide £34million to enable a national uplift in armed policing capability and capacity to respond more quickly and effectively to a firearms attack”.
