Brussels on lockdown as Paris attacks suspect on the run

BRUSSELS, Belgium (2nd UPDATE) – Brussels began a third consecutive day in lockdown under a maximum terror alert Monday, November 23, after Belgian police staged a series of raids but failed to find key Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam.

In an unprecedented security operation for the European capital, schools, universities and the metro were shut in the face of what Prime Minister Charles Michel called a “serious and imminent” threat of attacks similar to those that killed 130 people in France.

In Paris, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron accompanied French President Francois Hollande in a visit to the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people died in by far the bloodiest of the string of attacks claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group.

Cameron said on his Twitter account he stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Hollande at the venue, where a British man was among the dead on November 13.

Belgian police on Sunday, November 22, carried out 19 raids in Brussels and 3 in the industrial town of Charleroi, detaining 16 people, prosecutors said.

The driver of a car was injured after police fired two shots when the vehicle drove at officers.

“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.

Abdeslam’s elder brother Brahim blew himself up outside a Paris bar in the November 13 attacks and the 26-year-old is suspected of playing a key role in the massacre.

People going to work

Armed officers and troops patrolled the near-deserted streets of the tense Belgian capital all weekend after the government raised the terror alert to the highest level of 4 in the city.

Early Monday morning, traffic was relatively light in the center of the city and many people opted to cycle to work although most buses were running. 

The Brussels-based European Union and NATO both said they would bolster security and urged non-essential staff to work from home on Monda.

Michel said the Brussels metro system would remain shut and schools and universities would be closed over concerns that jihadists were plotting a repeat of the Paris gun and suicide bombing attacks on November 13.

‘Serious and imminent’

“What we fear are similar attacks, with several individuals in several places,” Michel told reporters.

“The threat is considered serious and imminent,” he said, adding that the rest of the country, including Brussels airport, would remain on security alert level three, meaning an attack is considered possible and the threat credible.

Officials will review the situation again later Monday.

Interior Minister Jan Jambon earlier said the authorities were looking for “several suspects” and not just for Abdeslam, who is thought to have slipped past French security forces after the Paris attacks.

“The operation is not finished. We will continue until we clean up this mess,” Jambon told Belgian radio Monday.

French police meanwhile released a photo of the third of three men who blew themselves up outside France’s national stadium during the rampage.

The man in the picture passed through Greece with one of the other suicide bombers, carrying a Syrian passport in the name of Mohammad al-Mahmod, a source close to the investigation said.

‘All necessary measures’

Hollande embarked on a diplomatic offensive in a bid to forge a broad anti-ISIS coalition.

After talks with Cameron, the French leader was due to meet US President Barack Obama on Tuesday, November 24, and then Germany’s Angela Merkel and Russia’s Vladimir Putin on the subsequent two days.

The UN Security Council on Friday authorized “all necessary measures” to fight jihadist violence after a wave of deadly attacks, including the downing of a Russian aircraft in Egypt with the loss of 224 lives and the storming of a luxury hotel in Mali that left 19 dead.

Meanwhile, Eagles of Death Metal, the Californian band that was playing at the Bataclan, spoke for the first time since the attacks, with singer Jesse Hughes saying that many fans died trying to protect their friends.

“So many people put themselves in front of people,” he said in an excerpt of an interview with Vice News. – Bryan McManus, AFP / Rappler.com