Belgium Conducts Searches After Foiled Train Attack, but Makes No Arrests

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/world/europe/belgium-searches-train-attack.html

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BRUSSELS — The Belgian authorities carried out searches Monday night in an operation linked to the attack last week on a high-speed train traveling to Paris from Amsterdam. No arrests were made.

The two searches took place in the Sint-Jans-Molenbeek district of Brussels, which was the focus of another terrorism investigation this year, and were part of a broader search for the possible residences of a person involved in the attack, the office of the Belgian Federal Public Prosecutor said in a statement on Tuesday.

The prosecutor’s office did not identify the person, but the statement appeared to be referring to Ayoub El Khazzani, a 26-year-old of Moroccan origin, who was reported to have traveled to Syria last year and to have lived in Belgium, France and Spain.

“Nobody was deprived of his liberty or taken in to be interrogated,” the statement said. “Some objects were confiscated for further investigation.”

There would be “no further comment on this aspect of the case,” the statement added.

The Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, has called the attack an act of terrorism. His country is struggling to deal with homegrown Islamist radicals and with criminal gangs and terrorist groups that have used Belgium as a distribution center for illegal arms.