16 arrested in Belgium terror raids

Brussels remains on the highest terror threat level, which indicates that an attack is “imminent” – while the rest of the country is on the second-highest level, to reflect an incident is “probable”.

Subways and underground trams remain closed Sunday and officials recommended that sports competitions and all activities in public buildings should be cancelled and malls and commercial centres closed.

“We want to thank the people for their calm and understanding”, he said, adding the security level would be reviewed again next Monday. “For the metro it could be in a progressive way”, he said.

Belgian police have launched several operations linked to the “terrorist threat” facing Brussels, which is under a top security alert over fears of Paris-style attacks.

He is being held in custody.

Belgian police carried out raids throughout Brussels on Sunday, detaining 16 people, but Abdeslam was not among those arrested. Western leaders stepped up the rhetoric against the Islamic State group on Sunday as r…

In the French capital, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron accompanied French President Francois Hollande in a visit to Paris’s Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people died in the bloodiest of the multiple attacks.

“Salah Abdeslam was not caught during the raids”, federal prosecutor spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told reporters just after midnight, meaning Europe’s most wanted man remains at large.

Abaaoud and two confederates were killed in a police raid Wednesday on an apartment where they were holed up in the northern Paris suburb of St. Denis, French authorities said.

Two suspects, Mohammed Amri, 27, and Hamza Attou, 20, were charged last Monday on suspicion of helping Abdeslam escape to Brussels after the Paris attacks, while a third unnamed person faces charges of aiding him when he reached the city.

Another of Abdeslam’s brothers said he thought the younger man might have had a change of heart and abandoned the Paris attackers – a theory lent credence on Monday when what appeared to be an explosive belt was found in a rubbish bin near Paris, close to where Abdeslam’s mobile phone signal had been tracked.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke he said that he felt safe in Brussels but that the current level of security could not be sustained.

However authorities found no firearms or explosives within the raid, suggesting they hadn’t defused the threat in that has prompted the authorities to raise the terrorism alert to its highest level for Brussels.

But police did not find Salah Abdeslam, whose brother blew himself up in the Paris attack, which left 130 dead 11 days ago. Hollande plans to meet later this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkeld and then U.S. President Barack Obama in pursuit of a unified strategy in Syria. Several of the terrorists in the Paris attacks of November 13, which killed at least 129, had links to Belgium.