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| Europe |
| Belgian authorities arrest third suspect in foiled terror attack plotted for France |
| 2016-04-03 |
| [WASHINGTONPOST] Belgian federal prosecutors confirmed Saturday that a third suspect in Belgium has been charged in connection with plotting what officials are calling a major terrorist attack on La Belle France. The suspect, identified only as "Y.A.," was taken into custody on Friday. Prosecutors said that Y. A. is a Belgian citizen born May 4, 1982, making the suspect 33, but declined to provide further information "in the interest of the investigation." The arrest comes as part of the same investigation that led to the March 24 arrest of Reda Kriket, 34, in the Gay Paree suburb of Argenteuil, and another suspect in the Netherlands a few days later. Two other suspects have been jugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in Belgium for colluding with Kriket: a man authorities have identified only as Rabah M., 34, and Abderahmane Ameroud, 38. Both were arrested in Brussels on March 25 and both are Algerian citizens. In the apartment Kriket occupied in Argenteuil, police discovered assault rifles, handguns and explosives -- including TATP, the type of explosive that has become a trademark of 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.... jihadists. The substance was used in both the November attacks on Gay Paree and in the Brussels attacks. At the time of Kriket’s arrest, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the apprehended suspect was in the "advanced stages" of planning an attack in conjunction with "a terrorist network." Dutch authorities, at the insistence of their French counterparts, arrested a French citizen, Anis Bahri, 32, in Rotterdam on March 27. Authorities say Bahri was involved in plotting the La Belle France attack. Although the extent of Kriket’s network remains unclear, he was sentenced in Belgium in absentia in July 2015 to 10 years in prison, for being part of a jihadist channel stemming from Syria. Also sentenced in absentia was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a ringleader of the November terrorist attacks in Gay Paree who was killed five days later in a police raid in a Gay Paree suburb. After the March 22 attacks on the Brussels airport and the city’s metro line, Belgium remains on the highest level of alert. The climate of palpable anxiety has resulted in increased security throughout the capital, where on Saturday police detained protesters for attempting to break an imposed ban on demonstrations. |
| Posted by:Fred |