Brussels yesterday began a third consecutive day in lockdown under a maximum terror alert, while French President Francois Hollande said France would intensify its strikes against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, after he held talks in Paris with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
In an unprecedented security operation for the Belgian capital, schools, universities and the metro were shut in the face of what Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel called a “serious and imminent” threat of attacks similar to those that killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13.
“What we fear are similar attacks, with several individuals in several places,” Michel said.
Belgian police on Sunday carried out 19 raids in Brussels and three in the industrial town of Charleroi, detaining 16 people, prosecutors said, adding later yesterday that five more people had been detained in overnight raids in Brussels and Liege.
The driver of a car was injured after police fired two shots when the vehicle drove at officers.
Belgian Minister of the Interior Jan Jambon earlier said that authorities were looking for “several suspects” and not just Salah Abdeslam, the prime suspect who is thought to have evaded 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 yesterday.
French police released a photograph of the third of three men who blew themselves up outside the State de France during the rampage on Nov. 13.
The man in the picture was seen passing 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.
In Paris, Hollande was accompanied by Cameron in a visit to the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people died in by far the bloodiest of the string of attacks claimed by IS.
Amid intense efforts to forge a coordinated international response, Cameron offered Hollande full support in the fight against IS.
“I firmly support the action President Hollande has taken to strike ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] in Syria,” Cameron said after the talks in Paris.
“It’s my firm conviction that Britain should do so too,” he said, offering France the use of a British airbase in Cyprus for strikes against IS in Syria and Iraq.
Hollande is due to meet US President Barack Obama today and then German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin later in the week.
“We will intensify our strikes, choosing targets that will do the most damage possible to this army of terrorists,” Hollande said.
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