Belgian police arrest 16 in nighttime raids

Belgian police arrested 16 people during a series of raids on Sunday after a huge security lock-down, but Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam was not among them, prosecutors said.

“Sixteen people were arrested” during 19 raids, with one person injured in a collision with a police vehicle, federal prosecutor spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told a press conference.

“Salah Abdeslam was not caught during the raids,” he added.

Van Der Sypt said that “no firemarms or explosives were discovered,” in the raids. “The investigation continues,” he said.

The situation was tense Sunday night in the wider area around the Grand Place, with police out in force and several raids looking for suspects going on. At one point, security forces closed off streets and yelled at people to stay away.

Police and soldiers descended on a major hotel in central Brussels. Guests at the Radisson Blu Hotel were told to stay in their rooms and residents of the area were told to stay indoors until further notice. In addition, the Grand Place central square, minutes from the hotel, was evacuated.

Several of the Paris attackers had lived in Brussels, including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the plot’s orchestrator who was killed Wednesday in a standoff with French police.

Abdeslam is known to have crossed into Belgium on November 14. His brother, Mohamed Abdeslam, went on Belgian TV and urged him to surrender, saying he would rather see him “in prison than in a cemetery.”

With hundreds of troops patrolling Brussels for a second day and authorities hunting one or more suspected militants, the Belgian government chose Sunday to keep the capital on the highest state of alert into the start of the workweek to prevent a Paris-style attack.

Citing a “serious and imminent” threat, Prime Minister Charles Michel announced that schools and universities in Brussels will be closed Monday, with the subway remaining shut down, preventing a return to normal in the city that is also home to the European Union’s main institutions.

“We fear an attack like in Paris, with several individuals, perhaps in several places,” Michel said after chairing a meeting of Belgium’s National Security Council.

While Brussels was kept on the highest of four alert levels, the rest of the country remains on a Level 3 alert, meaning an attack is “possible and likely.”

“Nobody is pleased with such a situation. Neither are we. But we have to take our responsibility,” Michel said.

 

Interior Minister Jan Jambon warned that the threat wouldn’t necessarily disappear if Abdeslam was found, because they are looking for several people in connection with a possible planned attack in Brussels.

“The terror threat is wider than just that person,” Jambon said. “We are looking at several things. That is why we are making the big show of power and following everything up by the minute. It’s of no use to hide this.”

Residents were bracing for the impact that the continued clampdown would have on this city of more than 1 million as the workweek began.

“I can’t believe they are closing down the city. It is crazy but they must have a good reason,” said Josephine Lemmens, a physiotherapist.

Lemmens said she didn’t know what she would do with her 11-year-old son now that schools have been ordered closed, but she conceded the measures were justified if they prevented an attack like the one in Paris.

Restaurant worker Raphael Lungo said the decision to keep the subway idle would affect him most.

“This is really going to complicate my life. I take the metro every day and I don’t know what I will do tomorrow,” he said, voicing confidence that the emergency wouldn’t last too long. “Europe succeeded in beating the Nazis,” he said.