Nine arrested in Brussels linked to Paris attacks

Belgian police arrested nine people in Brussels on Thursday during raids connected to last week’s deadly Paris attacks, prosecutors said.

Seven people were “taken in for further investigation” during six raids linked to French national stadium bomber Bilal Hadfi, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

They targeted places linked to Hadfi’s family, friends and others close to him, the prosecutor’s office said.

The other two arrests were also linked to last Friday’s attacks, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Many of the raids were in the largely immigrant area of Molenbeek, where Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud and two brothers linked to the attacks, Brahim and Salah Abdeslam, came from.

But there were also raids in the upscale Brussels suburbs of Uccle and Laeken.

A major operation targeting Salah Abedeslam in Molenbeek on Monday failed to find the suspect.

Belgian police have carried out a series of raids since the Paris massacre in which 129 people died, with Belgium facing increasing pressure for having failed to stop the attackers.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel on Thursday rejected criticism of his country’s security services and unveiled new security measures including jailing jihadists returning from Syria.

With Belgium under pressure after France said the attacks were plotted there, the raft of new measures also included putting ankle bracelets on radicals, launching possible night raids and extending detention periods for terror suspects.

But Michel insisted Belgium was pulling its weight and said Belgian intelligence led to the huge raid in France on Wednesday that killed the suspected ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

“I do not accept the criticisms which were aimed at denigrating the work of our security services,” Michel said in a speech to parliament.

He added that another “attack was prevented thanks in particular to intelligence provided by Belgian teams” to the French which led to Wednesday’s raid.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve however said on Thursday that other European countries gave Paris “no information” on Abaaoud.

Michel also said “lives have been saved” because of a terror cell involving Abaaoud that Belgian security broke up in a raid in January, killing two jihadists.

French President Francois Hollande has said that the Paris attacks were “planned in Syria, prepared and organised in Belgium.”

Abaaoud grew up in the poor Molenbeek district of Brussels, described as an extremist hotbed, before going to join the Islamic State group in Syria and escaping the raid in Verviers.

‘Their place is in prison’

Meanwhile Molenbeek native Brahim Abdesalam, who blew himself up in front of a cafe in Paris on Friday, and his brother Salah, who is wanted by French authorities over the attacks, were also from Molenbeek.

This year the two were questioned by police on their radical activities, but released without charge and without a report to French authorities.

Michel said “the government has decided to send a firm signal by releasing 400 million euros ($428 million)” for the 2016 budget mainly to provide the security services with more recruits and new equipment.

“And for the jihadists who return from Syria, their place is in prison,” the prime minister said.

Police will also be allowed to carry out raids at night — which until now have been banned from 9pm to 5am — in addition to putting ankle bracelets on radicals and extending detention for terror suspects from the current 24 hours to 72 hours.