Verviers - Belgian authorities have said there
are no indications that two suspects killed in an anti-terrorism sweep in
Verviers on Thursday were linked to the attacks in Paris last week.
With Europe dreading more terror, Belgian
authorities moved swiftly to pre-empt what they called a major attack by as
little as hours on Thursday, killing two suspects in a firefight and arresting
a third in a vast anti-terrorism sweep that stretched into the night.
The police raid on a former bakery in this
provincial rustbelt town was another palpable sign that terror had seeped deep
into Europe's heartland as security forces struck against militants who may be
returnees from Islamic holy war in Syria.
"As soon as I opened the window, you
could smell the gunpowder," said neighbour Alexandre Massaux following a
minutes-long firefight with automatic weapons and Kalashnikovs that was also
punctuated by explosions.
Two suspects were killed and a third
arrested and charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation.
"As soon as they thought special
forces were there, they opened fire," federal magistrate Eric Van der Sypt
said.
Weeks-long investigation
After the gun smoke lifted, police
continued with searches in Verviers and the greater Brussels area, seeking more
clues in a weeks-long investigation that started well before the terrorism
spree last week that led to 17 deaths in the Paris area. The Belgian operations
had no apparent link to the terrorist acts committed in France.
And, unlike the Paris terrorists, who
attacked the office of a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery store, the
suspects in Belgium were reportedly aiming at hard targets: police
installations.
"They were on the verge of committing
important terror attacks," Van der Sypt told a news conference in
Brussels.
Across Europe, anxiety has grown as the
manhunt continues for potential accomplices of the three Paris terrorists, all
of whom were shot dead by French police. Authorities in Belgium signaled they
were ready for more trouble by raising the national terror alert level from 2
to 3, the second-highest level.
"It shows we have to be extremely
careful," Van der Sypt said. The Verviers suspects "were extremely
well-armed men" equipped with automatic weapons, he said. Authorities have
previously said 300 Belgian residents have gone to fight with extremist Islamic
formations in Syria; it is unclear how many have returned.
"It sent shivers down my spine to
think about it" that the suspects could have been trained in Syria,
Massaux said.
Prime Minister Charles Michel said the
increase in the threat level was "a choice for prudence."
"There is no concrete or specific
knowledge of new elements of threat," he said.
Intense firefight
The suspects in Verviers opened fire on
police when they closed in on them near the city's train station, the
magistrate told reporters. There was an intense firefight for several minutes.
Video posted online showed a dark view of a building amid blasts, gunshots and
sirens, and a fire with smoke billowing up.
No police were wounded or killed in the
clash, which occurred at the height of rush hour in a crowded neighbourhood of
this former industrial town of 56 000 about 125km southeast of the capital,
Brussels.
Earlier on Thursday, Belgian authorities
said they were looking into possible links between a man they arrested in the
southern city of Charleroi for illegal trade in weapons and Amedy Coulibaly,
who killed four people in a Paris kosher market last week.
The man arrested in Belgium "claims
that he wanted to buy a car from the wife of Coulibaly," Van der Sypt
said. "At this moment this is the only link between what happened in
Paris."
Van der Sypt said that "of course,
naturally" we are continuing the investigation.
At first, the man came to police himself
claiming there had been contact with Coulibaly's common-law wife regarding the
car, but he was arrested following a search of his premises when indications of
illegal weapons trading were found.
Foiled terrorist plot
A Belgian connection figured in a 2010 French
criminal investigation into a foiled terrorist plot in which Coulibaly was one
of the convicted co-conspirators. The plotters included a Brussels-area contact
who was supposed to furnish both weapons and ammunition, according to French
judicial documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Several other countries are also involved
in the hunt for possible accomplices to Coulibaly and the other gunmen in the
French attacks, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi.
In Spain, authorities said Coulibaly drove
his common-law wife from France to Madrid on 31 December and was with her until
she took a 2 January flight to Istanbul.
Spain's National Court said in a statement
it was investigating what Coulibaly did in the country's capital with his wife,
Hayat Boumeddiene, and a third person who wasn't identified but is suspected of
helping Boumeddiene get from Turkey to Syria.
France on edge
France is on edge since last week's
attacks, which began at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The paper,
repeatedly threatened for its caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad,
buried several of its slain staff members on Thursday even as it reprinted
another weekly issue with Muhammad on its cover.
Also, defence officials said France was
under an unprecedented cyber assault with 19 000 cyberattacks launched after
the country's bloodiest terrorist attacks in decades, frustrating authorities
as they try to thwart repeat violence.
Around 120 000 security forces are deployed
to prevent future attacks.
Calling it an unprecedented surge, Admiral
Arnaud Coustilliere, head of cyberdefence for the French military, said about
19 000 French websites had faced cyberattacks in recent days, some carried out
by well-known Islamic hacker groups.
The attacks, mostly relatively minor
denial-of-service attacks, hit sites as varied as military regiments to pizza
shops but none appeared to have caused serious damage, he said. Military
authorities launched round-the-clock surveillance to protect the government sites
still coming under attack.
The Kouachi brothers claimed allegiance to
al-Qaeda in Yemen, and Coulibaly to the Islamic State group.
