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Version 2 Version 3
Brussels Placed at Highest Alert Level; Subway Is Closed Brussels Placed at Highest Alert Level; Subway Is Closed
(about 4 hours later)
WAASMUNSTER, Belgium — The Belgian authorities halted public transit, canceled soccer games and warned citizens to avoid shopping centers, airports, train stations and concerts in the Brussels region early Saturday, warning that the capital was vulnerable in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. BRUSSELS — Warning of a “serious and imminent” threat of a Paris-style terrorist attack, the authorities in Belgium on Saturday shut down the Brussels subway system, canceled soccer games and advised citizens to avoid public places amid a security lockdown across the Belgian capital.
The Belgian government’s threat analysis unit raised the country’s threat level to 3 on Monday, warning of a “possible and likely threat.” On Friday night, it raised the threat level to 4 for the capital region, Prime Minister Charles Michel announced. The United States Embassy in Brussels urged Americans “to shelter in place and remain at home.” A statement on the embassy website on Saturday advised that “if you must go out, avoid large crowds.”
“Level 4 means that the threat is serious and imminent,” Mr. Michel told reporters on Saturday. “The raising of the threat is a result of information, relatively precise, of a risk of an attack similar to the one that unfolded in Paris.” He said the threat involved “multiple individuals capable of striking a number of sites with weapons and explosives, maybe at the same time.” The security alert followed the discovery of weapons in the home of a Brussels resident arrested in connection with the terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov. 13. The weapons were found on Friday in Molenbeek, the heavily immigrant Brussels borough where at least three of the Paris attackers, all Belgium residents from Moroccan immigrant families, had lived.
At least four of the Paris attackers lived in the Brussels area. The borough has seen a series of police raids over the past week as the authorities have sought to uproot a suspected support network behind the carnage in Paris, in which 130 people were killed.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is believed to have been the chief planner and who died in a police raid outside Paris on Wednesday, lived in the Molenbeek neighborhood, as did Ibrahim Abdeslam, one of the suicide bombers, and his brother Salah, who is at large. Another suicide bomber, Bilal Hadfi, lived in the Neder-Over-Heembeek district. Adding to alarm over Belgium’s role as a center of Islamic extremism, the Turkish authorities on Saturday arrested a Belgian national of Moroccan ancestry, described as an Islamic State militant, at a luxury hotel in Antalya, along with two others. They identified the Belgian as Ahmad Dahmani, 26, and said he was trying to illegally cross the border into Syria.
The arrests of two other Belgians in connection with the attacks have further raised alarm here. As the Belgian government’s threat analysis unit raised the country’s threat level to 4, the highest possible, for the Brussels region, rumors of heavily armed terrorists in a car and bomb threats created a mood of deep foreboding in the city, which is home to not only Belgium’s government but also to the headquarters of the European Union and NATO.
A person who was arrested on Friday in Brussels has been charged with “participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization,” a federal magistrate, Eric Van der Sijpt, announced on Saturday. Prime Minister Charles Michel said on Saturday that the threat level had been raised because of “information, relatively precise, of a risk of an attack similar to the one that unfolded in Paris.” He said at a news conference that the threat involved “one or more individuals capable of striking a number of sites using weapons and explosives.”
A search of the person’s house came up with a weapon, but no explosives, Mr. Van der Sijpt said. He did not name the person, but several Belgian newspapers described him as a 39-year-old Moroccan who lives in the Jette section of Brussels, gave help to Salah Abdeslam after the attacks and has a brother who is fighting in Syria. The government had already arrested two other Belgians, accusing them of helping Mr. Abdeslam by driving him from Paris to Brussels. Potential targets included commercial centers, public transport, shopping streets and large public gatherings, Mr. Michel said. “We recommend to the people to respect all safety instructions and to stay informed via official announcements,” he added, advising people to discount a fog of rumors and unconfirmed reports.
Also on Saturday, Turkish authorities arrested an Islamic State militant at a luxury hotel in Antalya, along with two others. They identified him as Ahmad Dahmani, 26, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, and said he was trying to illegally cross the border into Syria. A railway station under the headquarters of the European Union’s executive was sealed off early Saturday and all traffic on the Brussels metro system was stopped. Soldiers with automatic weapons patrolled shopping malls. Several big stores stayed closed.
“We believe that Dahmani was in contact with the terrorists who perpetrated the Paris attacks,” said a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government protocol. The security measures highlighted fears that Salah Abdeslam, a suspected Paris attacker and Molenbeek resident who is still at large, could be preparing a repeat of the Paris slaughter in Belgium.
Mr. Dahmani arrived from Amsterdam on Nov. 14 — the day after the Paris attacks. “There is no record of the Belgian authorities having warned Turkey about Dahmani — which is why there was no entry ban,” the official said, adding, “Had the Belgian authorities alerted us in due time, Dahmani could have been apprehended at the airport.” Mr. Abdeslam, whose brother died in Paris when he detonated a suicide vest, was stopped by French police officers on Nov. 14 during a routine traffic check as he drove with two friends back to Brussels a few hours after the Paris attacks. But he was allowed to keep going and has since vanished. His two friends have both been arrested.
Mr. Abdeslam is now the target of an intensive manhunt and, despite reported sightings in Brussels and in other towns, he has managed to avoid arrest.
A police hotline for information about his whereabouts has received hundreds of calls but none have provided the authorities with enough information to establish his whereabouts. The Belgian news media has speculated that he may be dead.
The Abdeslam brothers both lived in Molenbeek, where they got to know Abdelhamid Abaaoud, an Islamic State militant who is believed to have been the chief planner of the Paris attacks and who died in a police raid just north of the French capital on Wednesday.
The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said on Saturday that the search of the Molenbeek residence of an unnamed man arrested on Thursday in another Brussels district had uncovered weapons, but no explosives. The arrested person has been charged with “participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization,” a federal magistrate, Eric Van der Sijpt, said.
Mr. Sijpt declined to name the person, but several Belgian newspapers described him as a 39-year-old Moroccan, and said he gave help to Salah Abdeslam after the Paris attacks and has a brother who is fighting in Syria.
More than 500 Belgians have left to fight for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, making Belgium the biggest per capita contributor of foreign fighters.
Mr. Dahmani, the Belgian national arrested in Turkey on his way to Syria, is suspected of having been “in contact with the terrorists who perpetrated the Paris attacks,” said a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government protocol.
He arrived in Turkey from Amsterdam on Nov. 14 — the day after the Paris attacks. “There is no record of the Belgian authorities having warned Turkey about Dahmani — which is why there was no entry ban,” the official said, adding, “Had the Belgian authorities alerted us in due time, Dahmani could have been apprehended at the airport.”
The storming on Friday of a hotel in Bamako, Mali, added to the anxieties in Belgium. Six Belgians were held hostage in the hotel, of whom four were released and two were killed, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Saturday.The storming on Friday of a hotel in Bamako, Mali, added to the anxieties in Belgium. Six Belgians were held hostage in the hotel, of whom four were released and two were killed, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Saturday.
Mr. Michel, in his news conference, said the suspension of service on the Brussels Métro would be reassessed on Sunday afternoon.
“We ask you to remain peaceful and avoid panic,” Mr. Michel said. “It is a serious situation and we are trying with the security forces to do everything to keep the situation under control.”
Earlier in the week, Mr. Michel said he would push legal changes to make it easier to capture and try suspected terrorists operating in Belgium and seek constitutional changes to extend, to 72 hours from 24 hours, the period terrorism suspects can be held by the police without charge.
He also called for imprisoning jihadists returning to Belgium and requiring anyone considered sufficiently radicalized to be a threat to wear an ankle bracelet. His plan would also ban the anonymous sale of telephone SIM cards, lift restrictions on what times of day the police can conduct raids on terrorism suspects and allow the authorities to arrest or expel religious figures “who preach hatred.”
In an interview published Saturday in the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, Interior Minister Jan Jambon said that up to 85 of the 130 Belgians who had returned from fighting in Syria lived in Molenbeek and that the government did not even know precisely who lived there.
“It’s unacceptable that we don’t know who lives on the territory of this community,” Mr. Jambon said. “There are apartments where two people are registered, but where 10 actually live.”
He called for a door-to-door census in the community, but also for improvements in infrastructure and education. “We have a societal responsibility to give a future to young people ages 15 and 16,” he said.
Mr. Hadfi, who blew himself up outside a McDonald’s near the Stade de France on Nov. 13, is the youngest of the attackers who have been identified so far. He was 20.
Ten days before the Paris attacks, his mother, Fatima, told the Belgian newspaper La Libre: “I’m scared of receiving a text message.”
Mr. Hadfi had been known to the Belgian authorities after leaving for Syria in February. On Thursday, the police raided six addresses linked to Mr. Hadfi’s relatives and entourage. The raids had been scheduled before the Paris attacks, officials said, but took on new urgency afterward.
Bilal was Fatima’s youngest child, a student in electrical studies at the Instituut Anneessens-Funck. His father died eight years ago. A French citizen, Bilal lived in Neder-over-Heembeek with his mother and three siblings.
His mother described him as a “pressure cooker” in Belgium. “I felt that he was going to explode one day or the next,” she said. He stopped smoking cigarettes and marijuana as he became radicalized.
Before he left for Syria, he told his mother that he was going to Morocco to visit his father’s grave. The day before he left, “he wasn’t in his normal state,” Fatima recalled.
“When he came over to the house his eyes were red,” she said. “He took me in his arms. He knew that it was a departure with no return.”
For three days after he left, he called his mother. Her daughter and two other sons came over on the fourth day. “My daughter said: ‘Bilal is gone.’ I said, ‘He’s dead?’ ‘No, he went to Syria.’ ”