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Police arrest three in anti-terror raids in Brussels

Police stand as they secure the area around a police building in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi following a machete attack on August 6, 2016. (AFP)

Belgian police have arrested three people for questioning following anti-terror raids in the capital Brussels as the country remains on alert over the terrorist attacks of March 22.

"Three persons were arrested and taken for questioning," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement on Friday.

It added that the three suspects, identified as Wassime A., Asma A. and Malika B., were arrested on Wednesday night, August 10. A judge, the statement said, will decide whether or not to extend their detention later Friday.

The arrests were reportedly made following eight raids ordered by an investigative judge.

Six of the raids were conducted in the neighborhood of Laeken, while the other two were carried out in the districts of Evere and Anderlecht, according to the statement.

No weapons or explosives were found in the raids, the prosecutor's office said. It did not elaborate on whether the searches were part of a probe into what the office had earlier declared as another "possible threat" following fake bomb threats reported on two planes due to land in Brussels on Wednesday.

Belgium has been on alert since March 22, when terrorist attacks hit the Brussels airport and a subway station, killing over 30 people. The Daesh Takfiri terrorists claimed the deadly assaults.

Officials said at the time that the attacks were carried out by the same terrorist cell which launched attacks in the French capital on November 13, 2015. The shootings and explosions in Paris left 130 people dead.

On August 6, two female Belgian police officers were injured in an assault by a machete-wielding man in the city of Charleroi. Daesh claimed the assault.

Belgium, home to the main institutions of the European Union and the NATO headquarters, has been viewed as the prime source of recruitment for Daesh in Europe.


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