Police arrest 26 over Belgium ‘terror plot’

Belgian police yesterday bust a Chechnya-linked Islamist network allegedly plotting to attack Belgium, rounding up 26 suspects in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany as terrorism fears mount in Europe.

“There were plans aimed at committing an attack in Belgium by an international terrorist group using for this purpose an extremist internet site, Ansar Al Mujahideen,” the Belgian prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

It said Belgian investigators had led an international inquiry from 2009 into a suspect network largely based in the northern port city of Antwerp.

“The target of the attack was not yet specifically determined,” the prosecutor’s office said, but there were “sufficient facts” to justify the raids.

No extra security measures will be enforced in Belgium, home to the European Union and Nato, a spokesman for the government’s crisis centre said.

Those arrested – of Belgian, Dutch, Moroccan or Russian (Chechen origin) nationality – are also suspected of recruiting “jihadist candidates” and of financing “a Chechen terrorist organisation, the Caucasus Emirate”.

Seven arrests took place early yesterday in several districts of the Belgian city of Antwerp, home to both large Jewish and Muslim communities.

On Belgium’s VTM television network, police were seen walking off with a young bearded man wearing handcuffs.

Dutch prosecutors said three men aged 25, 26 and 28 were arrested in Amsterdam on a request from Belgium. The detainees, all Dutch nationals, will soon be extradited to Belgium, said spokesman Wim de Bruin.

In Germany, a 31-year-old Russian national was arrested in Aachen, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said.

“He was the target of a European arrest warrant issued by Belgium,” a BKA spokeswoman said. “He is suspected of having recruited young people to fight in Chechnya.”