Belgium raises terror alert to highest level in Brussels

“Following our latest evaluation … the centre has raised its terror alert to level 4, signifying a very serious threat, for the Brussels region”, Belgium’s national Crisis Center said overnight.

Belgium has raised its terror threat alert to its highest level.

Michel said the authorities’ main objective is to reduce the number of large events so police officers can be freed up to secure Brussels.

A statement on the centre’s website said it had recommended closing the underground rail network until Sunday and the municipal transport authority tweeted that stations on the four main metro lines were closed “by order of the police”.

Belgian authorities over the past week have stormed residences across Brussels in their hunt for more clues about a few of the suspected Paris attackers, who appear to have planned the onslaught in Belgium.

Speaking at a news conference, he said the fear was that “several individuals with arms and explosives could launch an attack… perhaps even in several places”.

Michel did not provide any other details about a potential plot, such as the possible location or timing of an attack. The suspect, who has not been identified, is the third to be charged in Belgium over the deadliest terror attacks in French history after Hamza Attou and Mohammed Amri were charged this week with aiding fugitive suspect Salah Abdeslam on the night of the attacks. Brussels’ New Year fireworks display was canceled.

Belgian ministers and security officials are due to meet later to decide whether to extend the lockdown, imposed amid fears jihadists were plotting attacks similar to the ones which killed 130 dead in Paris. Although he’ is a French national, he was born in Belgium. Suspected attack ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud was killed in the raid along with his female cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen and an unidentified suicide bomber, who, according to DNA tests, is not known to police.

At least one Paris attacker, Salah Abdeslam, crossed into Belgium the morning after the attacks.

Belgian soldiers on patrol at Zaventem worldwide Airport.

In a development that underlines the Belgian connection with the attacks, Turkey’s Dogan news agency reported on Saturday that a Belgian citizen of Moroccan origin had been arrested near the southern resort city of Antalya along with two Syrian citizens.

Their other brother, Mohamed Abdeslam, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF Sunday he would rather see his surviving brother “in prison than in a cemetery”.

Giles Merritt, Secretary General of Brussels-based thinktank of Friends of Europe, said in an article that the European Union counter-terrorism effort “has been under-funded and lacks genuine powers”, and it has also “found itself buffeted by political winds from different directions”.

Investigators there detained nine people in raids across the country Thursday. French artists and cultural figures are calling for people to mark a week since the start of the Paris attacks with an outpouring of “noise and light”.