Belgian anti-terror police arrested 14 Muslim extremists allegedly planning to break an al-Qaeda prisoner out of jail as the government raised security in the capital for the Christmas season.
Police swarmed around Brussels, including at the airport, subway stations and Christmas markets, and the US embassy issued a warning to Americans that "there is currently a heightened risk of terrorist attack in Brussels" although it had no indication of any specific targets.
In night-long raids around the country, police picked up 14 suspects and found arms and explosives apparently to be used to free Nizar Trabelsi, a 37-year-old Tunisian jailed for planning a terrorist attack on US airbase personnel. He had been arrested two days after the Sept. 11 attacks in the US.
"If a group with an extremist view of Islam were ready to use arms and explosives to release Mr. Trabelsi, there is no guarantee that they would not use them for other ends," prosecutors' spokeswoman Lieve Pellens said.
Within hours of the arrests, police were out checking for suspicious packages and bags in the capital's Grand Place, where a huge Christmas tree was set up. The Interior Ministry urged citizens to report anything suspicious.
The measures were expected to last until after the New Year.
Trabelsi, sentenced four years ago to a maximum 10 years in jail, has been held in a high security unit at Lantin jail 100km east of Brussels. Police would not confirm reports that he has been moved.
Trabelsi admitted planning to drive a car bomb into the cafeteria at Kleine Brogel, a Belgian airbase where about 100 US military personnel are stationed.
According to the US-based military affairs think tank GlobalSecurity.org, the Kleine Brogel Air Base houses Belgian F-16 warplanes equipped with nuclear weapons that are under US control.
Trabelsi, who testified that he intended to kill US soldiers, says he met al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and asked to become a suicide bomber. He was arrested in Brussels on Sept. 13, 2001. Police later discovered the raw materials for a huge bomb in the back of a Brussels restaurant.
The federal prosecutor's office said the 14 suspects were planning to free the terrorist.
"Trabelsi would be helped by a group of people, driven by an extremist vision of Islam," the prosecutor's office said.
Trabelsi came to Europe in 1989 for a tryout with the German soccer team Fortuna Duesseldorf. He got a contract but was soon let go.
Over the next few years he bounced from team to team in the minor leagues, acquiring a cocaine habit and lengthy criminal record. Eventually, he made his way to al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, where trial evidence showed he had placed himself on a "list of martyrs" ready to commit suicide attacks.
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