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Belgium Charges Man Over Paris Attacks

A third, unnamed suspect had also been charged.

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The ringleader of the Paris attacks returned to the scene of the shootings and was near the Bataclan concert hall while police were still trying to oust the gunmen who killed 89 people there, the Paris prosecutor said on Tuesday.

Abrini was driving the Renault Clio auto that was later used by the attackers in the French capital. Bendaoud acknowledged in a telephone interview giving shelter to two people from Belgium but said he didn’t know who they were or what they planned.

A fifth man has been taken into custody in Belgium for “terrorist assasinations”, according to the federal prosecutor.

Some 300 additional police officers and 200 soldiers will be deployed as the hunt continues for suspects involved in the Islamist militant attacks which killed 130 people.

French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve told MPs on Tuesday that 124 people had been charged in France since a state of emergency was imposed, following more than 1,230 searches in which 230 weapons were recovered.

In the French capital, prosecutor Molins revealed that an explosives vest found Monday in a bag of rubbish in the suburb of Montrouge was “exactly the same construction as the others” used by the suicide bombers in the attacks.

Mr Hollande said it was “urgent to shut the border between Syria and Turkey so that no terrorist comes notably to Europe to perpetrate barbaric attacks like those we have known”.

Data released on Monday showed that new flight bookings to Paris, one of the world’s most visited cities, fell by over a quarter in the week after the 13 November attacks.

Streets remained quiet as schools, shopping malls and the Brussels’s metro remained closed after the country’s Prime Minister Charles Michel said Monday that the threat of a Paris-style attack in the city remains high.

A European and global arrest warrant has been issued against Abrini and authorities have warned that he is “dangerous” and “probably armed”, adding that the public should not approach him. But Michel said schools would reopen today.

Belgium police continued raids on dozens of places near Brussels, but so far they have not found Salah Abdeslam, who is wanted for helping to carry out the deadly attacks in Paris.

This means that he was in the vicinity within minutes of President François Hollande, who insisted on showing up to offer support to victims and police shortly after the terrorists were killed.

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As millions of Americans prepare to travel for the US Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, the agency said potential attackers could target private or government interests. The Paris prosecutor suggested that could have been the case, noting that an ISIS message claiming responsibility for the attacks mentioned the 18th arrondissement, a Paris neighborhood where no attack occurred.

US issues worldwide terror alert