Belgian police arrested seven people and Germany arrested two in investigations into ISIS suicide bombings in Brussels, while authorities in France said they thwarted a militant plot there “that was at an advanced stage”.
Investigators believe the attacks were carried out by the same ISIS cell responsible for gun and bomb attacks that killed 130 people in Paris in November.
The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said six people were held during searches in the Brussels neighbourhoods of Schaerbeek in the north and Jette in the west, as well as in the centre of the Belgian capital. Public broadcaster RTBF said a seventh man was arrested in the Forest borough of Brussels early on Friday.
The Belgian daily De Standaard said on Friday police had arrested a man who was filmed by security cameras in the airport terminal next to two bombers who blew themselves up there. Prosecutors did not confirm the arrest and it was not known if the man was among the seven detained overnight.
The attack in Brussels, home to the European Union and NATO, has heightened security concerns around the world and raised questions about EU states’ ability to respond in an effective, coordinated way to the Islamist militant threat.
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Brussels on Friday to offer US assistance in security. US officials said two of the Brussels victims were Americans. China and Britain said one each of their nationals were among the dead.
“Je suis bruxellois. Ik ben Brussel,” Kerry said after brief remarks in French and Dutch, expressing solidarity in its two languages that he too felt a citizen of the Belgian capital.
In Paris on Thursday, authorities arrested a French national suspected of belonging to a militant network planning an attack in France, although they said there was no evidence directly tying his plot to the Brussels and Paris attacks.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a televised address that the arrest helped “foil a plot in France that was at an advanced stage”.
After the arrest by the French counterterrorism service, DGSI, the agency raided an apartment building in the northern Paris suburb of Argenteuil. A police source said investigators found acetone peroxide explosives in the apartment.
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