Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said Saturday that the arrests in Molenbeek “can be seen in connection with a grey Polo vehicle rented in Belgium” found near the Bataclan.
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Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said that Molenbeek, a district where Police arrested Saturday several suspects linked to the Paris attacks and is known for years as being a hotspot for Islamist radicals, need to be cleaned up.
French and Belgian prosecutors said a auto found near the concert venue in Paris, where the deadliest attack was carried out on Friday, had been hired in Belgium.
French President Francois Hollande earlier said the assaults were an “act of war” by IS.
“Given the events in Paris on Friday evening, there is heightened awareness around any such incident and it is best that we treat the matter in all seriousness”, said Detective Superintendent Nick May.
Footage has emerged of the moment anti-terror police made arrests in Brussels in connection to the Paris terror attacks.
All of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named in the quickly moving investigation.
The three, he said, had not previously been known to French authorities.
Three Chileans also were killed, as were two people from Belgium, two from Mexico, two from Spain, one from Portugal, one from the United Kingdom and many French citizens.
Proportional to its 11 million population, Belgium has been the European country which has contributed the most foreign fighters to the civil war in Syria – over 300 by official estimates a year ago – and it has figured in many hardliners’ attacks and plots across the continent.
French authorities said they found the bodies of seven killers but IS, which claimed responsibility as revenge for French military action in Syria and Iraq, said there were eight, raising questions over whether one was on the loose.
Nick Alexander a member of the entourage of California-based rock band Eagles of Death Metal was identified in a statement from his family as one of at least 89 people who died when gunmen stormed the Bataclan music hall in the midst of Friday night’s show.
Prosecutors say they believe three groups of attackers were involved in the carnage, and they do not rule out that one or more assailants may still be at large.
Police later said they had smashed a cell aiming to kill police officers.
Molins said there were three coordinated teams of terrorists, all armed with Kalashnikov rifles and explosive vests fitted with bolts meant to achieve “a maximum of victims”.
Cazeneuve said that “issues identified as priorities since the attacks in January” needed to be addressed more urgently.
Belgium has also been a recent target of militant attacks. Six attackers blew themselves up and one was shot by police.
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Paris residents struggled to come to terms with the latest atrocities, 10 months after jihadists hit satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket.
