Belgium makes 10th arrest in terror probe

The suspect, Ayoub Bazzarouj, a 22-year-old Belgian citizen, was arrested after the search of a house in the Molenbeek section of Brussels on Wednesday, officials said.

A Belgian judge has delivered an arrest warrant against a 10th suspect in the Paris attacks probe, charging him with terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group.

BRUSSELS (AP) – Belgian authorities have freed three people after questioning them about a suspected plot to carry out extremist attacks in Brussels over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Paris also canceled its main New Year’s fireworks display, but the normal gathering at the Champs-Élysées will go ahead as planned as will a shortened version of a typical program at the Arc de Triomphe.

The last three of the six people arrested during raids on Thursday in and around the Belgian capital “have been released after interrogation”, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Russian security forces will close off Moscow’s Red Square, traditionally a place where people gather to ring in the new year, amid safety concerns. Salah Abdeslam remains at large.

“This New Year’s Eve I am going to dance and party until the cock crows”, said 35-year-old Franklyn Smith.

Three of the six were released late on Thursday.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann and Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said German authorities had been tipped off by a foreign intelligence service that the Islamic State terrorist group was planning attacks with five to seven suicide bombers, but so far no arrests had been made.

The prosecutor’s office also said two men, whom they identified as Said S., 30, and Mohammed K., 27, had already been formally charged with terrorism-related offences and remain in custody.

New Year celebrations in major cities across the world will have a nervous backdrop with events cancelled and an increased police presence.

Four of the attackers who killed 130 people in Paris in November lived in Belgium; a country considered a hub for recruiting Daesh militants in Europe.

The detentions came as police conducted searches at six locations in Brussels and one just outside the city.

He said that in the current circumstances it was not possible to “guarantee that we can check everyone coming to the event”. Evidence that two of the November 13 Paris attackers had entered the continent under cover of a wave of Middle Eastern refugees heightened anxieties over the migration crisis.

Strategic crime analyst Alexandra Jones writes about motorcycles gangs and extremism, and notes: “the Kamikaze Riders MC in Belgium are closely associated with jihadists now active in Syria and Iraq, one of the Dutch travellers MCs has an interesting association with Northern Ireland (Ulster), and with some considerable caution Median Empire MC in Germany might be linked to the Kurdish PKK”.