The French plot has not been linked “at this stage” to the attacks in Brussels, or those in Paris last November, but “is the result of weeks of investigation, of technical and physical surveillance, and close cooperation between European services”, Cazeneuve said, adding that the individual arrested was involved in a “terror network” that planned to strike.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, officers in France swooped on a man suspected of being in the “advanced stages” of a plot to attack the country, in a raid on the outskirts of Paris.
“There have been some arrests, and we know there are other networks, because even though the one that carried out the attacks in Paris and Brussels is in the process of being wiped out with a number of its members arrested, there’s still a threat looming”.
The alleged logistics chief of those attacks was caught before the Brussels bombings, but Salah Abdeslam’s lawyer, Sven Mary, told CBS News the police had only interrogated him once. “We will not be deterred”.
One of the police operations occurred in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek, officials said, which is where a taxi driver picked up three of the suspected bombers before the blasts Tuesday.
Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Brussels on Friday to mourn the victims who lost their lives in the Belgian capital.
In total, nine people have been arrested in Belgium and two in Germany since Tuesday’s attacks.
In a statement, Belgian officials said the arrests were the result of an investigation into the bombings at an airport and on the metro system which killed 31 people and injured 316 more.
Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of the suicide bombers who struck the Brussels airport, was on a United States counterterrorism watch list even before the November Paris attacks, CNN reported Friday, citing a USA official.
Abdeslam is also believed to have driven the vehicle that brought the third Brussels suicide bomber, Najim Laachraoui, to Austria from Hungary in September past year.
Brahim el-Bakraoui has already been named as one of the perpetrators of the airport attack.
Police use a robotic device as they take part in a search in the Brussels borough of Schaerbeek following Tuesday’s bombings in Brussels, Belgium, March 24, 2016. Khalid El Bakraoui, Ibrahim’s brother, was behind the attack on the Brussels metro station, killing 20.
Advertisement
Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens tendered their resignations to Prime Minister Charles Michel, who asked them to stay on. The connection, made with DNA analysis, offers the most definitive link yet between the two attacks, both of which have been claimed by ISIS.
