Schools, metro reopen in Brussels despite alert

Information obtained on November 19 suggested “that the two attackers – Abaaoud and the man we found by his side in the apartment – were planning an attack consisting of blowing themselves up at La Defense either on Wednesday the 18th or Thursday the 19th”, Molins said.

Mohamed Abrini, 29, was filmed along with Abdeslam at a petrol station in Ressons enroute to Paris in a Renault Clio which was later used in the attacks, Belgium’s federal prosecutor said in a statement on Tuesday.

The coordinated attacks on November 13, in which 130 people were killed, prompted France to declare a national state of emergency and to step up air strikes in Syria on Islamic State, the militant group which has claimed responsibility.

The threat alert level is expected to remain at that level until at least Monday, barring a major development such as the arrest of suspects in the Paris attacks.

In Belgium, prosecutors said they had charged a fourth person with terrorist offences linked to the Paris attacks.

Regular life began to return to Brussels yesterday as schools reopened and underground train services partially resumed, despite the city remaining under maximum terrorism alert in the wake of the November 13 attacks on Paris. About half the stations on its metro system will re-open today along with city schools, but 300 more police officers and 200 soldiers will be deployed.

Suspected Paris attacker Abdeslam is being sought after authorities said he evaded a massive manhunt involving raids in Brussels and its suburbs.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) group says it carried out the attacks.

Abdeslam’s mobile phone was detected after the attacks in the 18th district in the north of Paris, near an abandoned auto that he had rented, and then later in Chatillon in the south, the source said on Monday. Before the attacks, European governments believed Abaaoud was still in Syria, having been in Belgium in January plotting attacks that were foiled when police raided a house in Verviers, killing two Belgian associates. Authorities said the vest didn’t have a detonator, but a police official said the vest contained bolts and the same type of explosive used in the Paris attacks.

Two other people, arrested at the same time as each other, have been released.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said that because a “serious and imminent threat” still exists, the capital will be on the highest state of alert until at least next week. Investigators believe the second man was one of the unnamed gunmen who attacked cafes and restaurants that night. Closed circuit TV footage showed Abaaoud entering the Croix de Chavaux metro railway station in eastern Paris, a couple of hundred metres from where the Seat Leon was found, police say. Aides later said the figure was based on an assumption of how many people would have to be involved to mount attacks like those in Paris.

Several reports said that he mingled with police in the immediate aftermath of the Bataclan attack.

Local authorities in Montrouge said that the garbage cans in the area are emptied “once or twice a week”, Le Monde reported, underscoring the puzzle over how and when the possible suicide vest ended up in one of them.