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Brussels Cancels New Year's Festivities over Terror Threat, Detains New Suspect
[AnNahar] The annual New Year's Eve festivities and fireworks in the heart of Brussels have been canceled for security reasons, the mayor announced on Wednesday, as the Belgian capital remains on high alert over a possible terror threat."Unfortunately we have been forced to cancel the fireworks and all that was planned for tomorrow (Thursday) evening and that would have brought a lot of people together in the center of Brussels, following a risk analysis by the crisis center," mayor Yvan Mayeur told Belgian broadcaster RTBF. Last year, some 100,000 people turned out to watch the traditional New Year's Eve fireworks display at the Place de Brouckere. Mayeur said in the current circumstances it wasn't possible to "guarantee that we can check everyone coming to the event". "It's better not to take any risks," he added. The Belgian capital, home to the headquarters of NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , has been on high alert since the November 13 gun and suicide kaboom attacks in Gay Paree that left 130 dead. A key suspect in the Gay Paree attacks, Belgian-born runaway Salah Abdeslam, is believed to have fled to Brussels in the hours after the massacre, which was claimed by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... jihadist group. The Belgian authorities have so far detained nine men in the case including four accused of helping Abdeslam get away from the scene of the crimes. Earlier Wednesday, Belgian police held a man for questioning following a new search in the troubled Brussels immigrant neighborhood of Molenbeek in connection with the Gay Paree attacks. Earlier this week, Belgian police tossed in the slammer Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! two people suspected of plotting attacks in Brussels during New Year festivities, with officers seizing military-style training uniforms, computer hardware and Islamic State propaganda material.
Belgian police detained six people during house searches in Brussels on Thursday as part of an investigation into an alleged plot to carry out an attack in the capital on New Year's Eve. Police carried out searches at six locations in the Belgian capital and one just outside the city, seizing computers, mobile phones and equipment for airsoft, a sport involving guns that shoot non-lethal plastic pellets. Posted by: trailing wife 2015-12-31 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=440462 |