''Islamic Terrorist Plot To Massacure Police In The Street Stopped at 11th Hour in Belgium''

[Mame Biram Diouf]

A major Islamist plot to kill police officers in the street has been foiled at the eleventh hour, prosecutors have said, after counter-terror raids led to the arrest of 15 suspected jihadis in Belgium and France.

 

In the same series of raids, two suspected terrorists were shot dead by police in the Belgian town of Verviers, near the German border.

 

Authorities said they had moved to dismantle an active terror cell spanning both European countries to avert an imminent terrorist attack aimed at police officers and buildings in Belgium.

 

Eric van der Sijpt, a Belgian federal magistrate, said 13 suspected terrorists were arrested in Belgium overnight with a further two detained in France. Nine of the suspects were held in raids in Molembeek, two in Brussels, one in Berchem, one in Verviers, where the shootout took place, and two in France.

 

All three Verviers gunmen were Belgian nationals and are thought to have belonged to a homegrown cell of jihadis that recently returned from Syria.

 

At the address in Verviers, police found ammunition and weapons including four Kalashnikovs, several smaller firearms and explosives. Search teams also discovered several police uniforms, walkie-talkies, radios, mobile phones and false documents and an “important amount of money,” Van der Sijpt said.

 

In Molembeek, police found ammunition, a knife, mobile phones and “different objects important for the investigation”.

 

Van der Sijpt added that officers were still working to identify the two gunmen killed in the shootout in Verviers.

 

“This operation was meant to dismantle a terrorist cell and also the logistic network behind it,” he said. “This investigation for the time being has shown that these people had intentions to kill several policemen in the street and at police [stations].”

 

Van der Sijpt said there was no link between events in Verviers and last week’s terror attacks in Paris but revealed that an atrocity on a similar scale had been averted at the last minute.

 

“This operation stopped a major terrorist attack from taking place. You could say a second potential Paris has been averted,” he said.

 

Meanwhile, several Jewish schools in Belgium have been closed amid warnings that they could be targets for Islamist militants, while cities across the country remain on a heightened state of alert.

 

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/belgium-terror-raid-jewish-schools-closed