Police In Belgium Arrest 6 Over New Year’s Eve Terrorist Plot

Police in Brussels on Thursday detained six more men as a part of an ongoing investigation into a New Year’s terror threat on the Belgian capital, according to Reuters. Airsoft is a type of airgun. A judge was expected to decide later Thursday whether they could be held longer. Selih, who works in one of the many bars dotting the area, said the latest arrests had alarmed people.

In a statement, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office said no weapons or explosives were found in Wednesday’s search, but that “about 10 cellphones” were seized and are being examined.

“In these circumstances, we can’t check everyone”, Mayeur said.

The prosecutor’s office said the two men already formally charged over the end-of-year plot had been ordered by a court to be detained for another month.

“Together with the interior minister, we’ve chose to not have the celebrations on Thursday evening”, Brussels mayor Yvan Mayeur told state broadcaster RTBF.

Last year, some 100,000 people turned out to watch the traditional New Year’s Eve fireworks display.

It is not, however, the first time the New Year’s Eve fireworks have been cancelled as the authorities made the same decision in 2007 because of another terror threat.

Belgium has been a central point of the investigation into the explosions and massacre on a single night at a Paris sports stadium, a concert hall and a street of restaurants.

Two Belgian nationals arrested earlier this week and named as 30-year-old Said S. and 27-year-old Mohammed K., are being held on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack, prosecutors said.

New Year fireworks and festivities have been cancelled in Brussels and extra measures are being put in place in other cities, including Paris, London, Berlin and Moscow.

But authorities agreed France’s biggest public gathering since the attacks can go ahead on the Champs Elysees avenue, with bolstered security.

Turkey has been on high security alert since October, when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of peace activists in Ankara, killing 103 people in the worst attack in the country’s modern history. Soldiers are deployed at key tourist sites including Notre Dame cathedral, where tourist Mark Scarrott was visiting from Australia.

The presumed ringleader of the Paris attackers, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was Belgian and grew up in the poor Brussels district of Molenbeek.