Brussels spends day on top alert

Terror threat closes businesses, subways; officers fill streets

A soldier patrols Saturday outside the Sacre-Coeur Basilica atop Montmartre in Paris.
A soldier patrols Saturday outside the Sacre-Coeur Basilica atop Montmartre in Paris.

BRUSSELS -- Heavily armed police officers and soldiers patrolled key intersections, and subways and many stores closed Saturday in Belgium's capital as the government warned of a threat of Paris-style attacks. At least one suspect from the deadly Paris attacks is at large and was last seen crossing into Belgium.

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Belgian soldiers guard the French Consulate office Saturday in Brussels.

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A tourist stops at the blocked entrance of a subway station Saturday in Brussels. With the city under a heighten terror alert, the subways shut down.

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A Belgian soldier patrols a nearly deserted street in the main shopping district in Brussels.

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Turkish police detain a Belgian man identifi ed as Ahmet Dahmani late Friday in Antalya. Dahmani is suspected of having ties to Islamic extremists and possibly the Paris attacks.

The government raised the terror alert in Brussels to its highest level, signaling a very serious threat as armored vehicles rolled along the streets and police searched the home of one of the suspects arrested in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.

"We have precise information that outlines the risk of an attack similar to the one that unfolded in Paris," Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said at a news conference Saturday morning in Brussels. "It is a threat based on the theory that it would take place with arms and explosives, maybe even in several places and at the same time."

Michel said officials had identified shopping centers, public transportation and crowded events as targets of possible attacks.

Searches of homes by police in the immigrant quarter of Molenbeek and other neighborhoods in Brussels uncovered explosives and weapons, the prime minister said. Belgian security officials said it appeared that suspects were planning simultaneous attacks and that this was the reason for raising the terror alert.

The U.S. Embassy in Brussels also issued a security alert, warning U.S. citizens in that country "to shelter in place and remain at home."

Brussels, a city of more than 1 million people and home to most of the institutions of the European Union and NATO, has been on alert since news emerged that at least three jihadis involved in the Paris attacks had lived in Brussels. Salah Abdeslam, one of two brothers believed to have been involved and now the focus of an international manhunt, is from the Brussels district of Molenbeek.

Abdeslam, and possibly others in the Paris attacks, was last seen crossing into Belgium the morning after the Paris attacks. A Paris police official and the Paris prosecutor's office said Saturday that they had no firm information on Abdeslam's whereabouts, including whether he was in the Brussels area.

Abdeslam may have an explosive belt, according to Hamza Attou, the man who helped him flee to Brussels after the Paris attacks, said Carine Coquelet, Attou's lawyer. She spoke during an interview with RTBF, a public broadcasting organization of the French community in Belgium.

On the drive from Paris, Abdeslam and Attou were "stopped three times by French authorities, and each time they showed their identity documents," Coquelet told the broadcaster.

Stepped-up security

In response to the heightened threat level, Belgian authorities beefed up security, and in Brussels, many businesses closed. Others remained open, but their workers were wary.

"We are mobilizing the maximum number of people that is possible. All policemen are being called on," Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said on VTM television in Brussels. "All the reserves will be called and also the military will give more support to guarantee the highest possible security."

The terror warning came hours after the United Nations on Friday unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for countries to take "all necessary measures" to combat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, warning that the group intends to carry out more attacks like those in the French capital. French President Francois Hollande and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron applauded the decision.

The European Commission restricted access to its buildings in Belgium in response to the terror alert, spokesman Annika Breidthardt said in a text message. The European Parliament closed its visitor center.

Belgian authorities searched the house of one of the suspects arrested in the attacks in Paris, the federal prosecutor's office said Saturday. "A few weapons were found, but no explosives or an explosive belt," the prosecutor said.

People in Brussels should "avoid places where a lot of people come together, like concerts, major events, train stations and airports, public transport," the country's national crisis center said on its website. Brussels canceled last Tuesday's soccer match between Belgium and Spain because of security concerns.

Residents also were told to avoid gatherings in commercial districts. Service was halted on the Brussels Metro, as well as on streetcar lines that run underground.

"Of course I'm afraid. We all are. I even called my boss telling him I'd prefer not to come to work today, but that was not an option," said Linda Faraj, who was selling Belgian waffles in a shop on Nieuwsstraat, a main shopping boulevard that was all but deserted.

At an ice cream shop, Eveline Lebruyn was sharing a scoop of ice cream with her mother. "I think we should continue our lives just like before," said Lebruyn. "We can't predict where they will attack, or if they do, so I try not to worry."

The manager wasn't wary. "I guess these threats must be very serious," he said.

As the first snow flurries of winter fell, customers were few on what normally would be a busy weekend shopping day in the lead-up to Christmas and New Year's Day. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium closed for the weekend, and a Saturday evening concert by French rocker Johnny Hallyday was rescheduled for March, the Palais 21 venue announced on its website.

Brussels Airport, which is not in the Brussels administrative region, reported normal operations Saturday, but spokesman Florence Muls said special attention was being paid to security.

Brussels was the home of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected organizer of the Paris attacks. Belgium has filed charges of "participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization" against three suspects related to the Paris attacks.

"We urge the public not to give in to panic, to stay calm. We have taken the measures that are necessary," the prime minister said.

He said the government's crisis cell will meet again this afternoon to reassess the threat.

Turkey connection

Authorities across Europe, the Mideast and in Washington were still working Saturday to determine how a network of primarily French and Belgian attackers, with links to Islamic extremists in Syria, plotted and carried out the deadliest violence in France in decades -- and how many extremists may still be around.

Paris prosecutors said Friday that they had determined through fingerprint checks that two of the seven attackers who died in the bloodshed Nov. 13 had entered Europe through Greece, an entry point for many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in Europe. The five other attackers who died had links to France and Belgium.

Abaaoud was killed in a raid Wednesday on an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. Seven of the eight people detained in that raid have been released, the Paris prosecutor's office said Saturday. The eighth person still in custody, Jawad Bendaoud, said in televised remarks during the siege that he let people stay in the raided apartment as a favor and "didn't know they were terrorists."

A new potential link emerged Saturday in Turkey, where authorities said they detained a 26-year-old Belgian suspected of connections to Islamic extremists and possibly to the Paris attacks. The private Dogan news agency identified him as Ahmet Dahmani and said he is suspected of having set off explosions at areas in Paris that were targeted in the attacks.

Dahmani was detained in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya along with two other suspected Islamic State militants. A senior Turkish government official said Dahmani was believed to have been in contact with the Paris attackers, though the official did not say when. Dahmani arrived in Turkey on Nov. 14 from Amsterdam, and the three were preparing to cross into Syria, the official said.

The official cannot be named because of Turkish government rules that bar officials from speaking to reporters without previous authorization.

Officials in France and Belgium would not comment on Dahmani.

Concerns about Europe's porous borders prompted interior and justice ministers' meeting in Brussels on Friday to promise to tighten controls to make it easier to track the movements of jihadis who have European passports traveling to and from war zones in Syria.

Meetings ahead

Marking a week since the carnage, some Parisians lit candles Friday night and paid tribute to the victims by silently reflecting on them. Others decided that enjoying themselves was the best way to defy the extremists.

They sang and danced on Place de la Republique, in the heart of a trendy neighborhood where scores of people were killed.

France's Parliament has extended a state of emergency for three months, giving police officers more authority to carry out arrests and searches, and allowing authorities to prohibit the movement of people and vehicles at specific times and places.

On Saturday, Paris police also extended a ban on demonstrations and other gatherings through Nov. 30, when a U.N. climate-change conference with more than 100 heads of state is scheduled to start.

Hollande is also to meet with Cameron on Monday morning in Paris to discuss cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, Cameron's office said. Hollande is to travel to Washington and Moscow later next week to push for a stronger international coalition against the Islamic State.

Information for this article was contributed by John-Thor Dahlburg, Angela Charlton, Frank Jordans, Karl Ritter, Maria Sanminiatelli, Suzan Fraser and Lorne Cook of The Associated Press; by Ian Wishart, Julia Verlaine, Corina Ruhe, Stephanie Bodoni and John Follain of Bloomberg News; and by William Booth, Anthony Faiola, Emily Badger, Missy Ryan, Annabell Van den Berghe, Brian Murphy, Daniela Deane, Liz Sly, Souad Mekhennet, Cleophee Demoustier, Virgile Demoustier and Karla Adam of The Washington Post.

A Section on 11/22/2015

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