Belgian police raid home as part of terror crackdown
December 21, 2015
Belgian authorities continued their ongoing probe into homegrown terrorist cells in connection with last month's attack in Paris, as they searched a house in the troubled Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels on Sunday.
At least one person was detained following the raid, which reportedly lasted around five hours. The AFP news agency reported that two arrests were made. A spokesperson for the federal prosecutor did not give specific details as to who or why the suspects were taken into custody, although he did say that Salah Abdeslam, a top fugitive wanted in connection with the Paris attacks, was not one of them.
The spokesperson went on to say that an official statement would be released on Monday once there was more information.
Belgian authorities have been carrying out raids across the country since the November 13 attacks that left 130 people dead. Several of the suspects- including the attackers' ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, had lived in the Brussels district of Molenbeek.
The AFP news agency also said it had confirmed a report in the French daily newspaper Le Parisien, which said Abdeslam had passed three police checks in France as he fled to Belgium after the Paris attacks.
Hamza Attou - who with another man, Mohammed Amri, is suspected of driving Abdeslam to Brussels - was quoted as saying he had been threatened. "He told us to take him back to Brussels or he would blow up the car," Attou said, according to the source.
At the third checkpoint, the report said, the three were asked for their papers and Abdeslam even gave police his address in Molenbeek.
blc/rc (AFP, AP)