Brussels Placed at Highest Alert Level; Subway Is Closed
By ANDREW HIGGINS and KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA

BRUSSELS — Warning of a “serious and imminent” threat of a Paris-style terrorist attack, the authorities in Belgium on Saturday shut down the Brussels subway system, canceled soccer games and advised citizens to avoid public places amid a security lockdown across the Belgian capital.

The United States Embassy in Brussels urged Americans “to shelter in place and remain at home.” A statement on the embassy website on Saturday advised that “if you must go out, avoid large crowds.”

The security alert followed the discovery of weapons in the home of a Brussels resident arrested in connection with the terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov. 13. The weapons were found on Friday in Molenbeek, the heavily immigrant Brussels borough where at least three of the Paris attackers, all Belgium residents from Moroccan immigrant families, had lived.

The borough has seen a series of police raids over the past week as the authorities have sought to uproot a suspected support network behind the carnage in Paris, in which 130 people were killed.

Adding to alarm over Belgium’s role as a center of Islamic extremism, the Turkish authorities on Saturday arrested a Belgian national of Moroccan ancestry, described as an Islamic State militant, at a luxury hotel in Antalya, along with two others. They identified the Belgian as Ahmad Dahmani, 26, and said he was trying to illegally cross the border into Syria.

As the Belgian government’s threat analysis unit raised the country’s threat level to 4, the highest possible, for the Brussels region, rumors of heavily armed terrorists in a car and of bomb threats created a mood of deep foreboding in the city, which is home to not only Belgium’s government but also to the headquarters of the European Union and NATO.

Prime Minister Charles Michel said on Saturday that the threat level had been raised because of “information, relatively precise, of a risk of an attack similar to the one that unfolded in Paris.” He said at a news conference that the threat involved “one or more individuals capable of striking a number of sites using weapons and explosives.”

Potential targets included commercial centers, public transport, shopping streets and large public gatherings, Mr. Michel said. “We recommend to the people to respect all safety instructions and to stay informed via official announcements,” he added, advising people to discount a fog of rumors and unconfirmed reports.

A railway station under the headquarters of the European Union’s executive was sealed off early Saturday and all traffic on the Brussels metro system was stopped. Soldiers with automatic weapons patrolled shopping malls. Several big stores stayed closed.

No incidents had been reported by the end of Saturday. The high alert was to continue through Sunday.

The security measures highlighted fears that Salah Abdeslam, a suspected Paris attacker and Molenbeek resident who is still at large, could be preparing a repeat of the Paris slaughter in Belgium.

A senior European counterterrorism official said on Saturday that Mr. Abdeslam was believed to be heavily armed with weapons and explosives, and might be seeking to regroup with confederates in Belgium.

“He may be on his last mission,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence assessments. “He’s up for a hell of an attack.”

Those fears were heightened Saturday after the lawyer for a man who traveled by car with Mr. Abdeslam to Brussels after the Paris attacks suggested that he may have been carrying a bomb.

The lawyer, Carine Couquelet, said her client, Hamza Attouh, told the police that Mr. Abdeslam “seemed to be in a very bad state, very nervous, very anxious.” Mr. Attouh said they did not discuss the attacks, according to the lawyer. But he said he told the police that Mr. Abdeslam was wearing a big jacket “with something underneath.” While he did not know what it was, the lawyer said, the sight of it “made him scared.”

Mr. Abdeslam, whose brother died in Paris when he detonated a suicide vest, was stopped by French police officers on Nov. 14 during a routine traffic check as he drove with two friends back to Brussels a few hours after the Paris attacks. But he was allowed to keep going and has since vanished. His two friends have both been arrested.

Mr. Abdeslam is now the target of an intensive manhunt and he has managed to avoid arrest.

A police hotline for information about his whereabouts has received hundreds of calls but none have provided the authorities with enough information to establish his whereabouts. The Belgian news media has speculated that he may be dead.

The Abdeslam brothers both lived in Molenbeek, where they got to know Abdelhamid Abaaoud, an Islamic State militant who is believed to have been the chief planner of the Paris attacks and who died in a police raid just north of the French capital on Wednesday.

The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said on Saturday that the search of the Molenbeek residence of an unnamed man arrested on Thursday in another Brussels district had uncovered weapons, but no explosives. The arrested person has been charged with “participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization,” a federal magistrate, Eric Van der Sijpt, said.

Mr. Sijpt declined to name the person, but several Belgian newspapers described him as a 39-year-old Moroccan, and said he gave help to Salah Abdeslam after the Paris attacks and has a brother who is fighting in Syria.

More than 500 Belgians have left to fight for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, making Belgium the biggest per capita contributor of foreign fighters.

Mr. Dahmani, the Belgian national arrested in Turkey on his way to Syria, is suspected of having been “in contact with the terrorists who perpetrated the Paris attacks,” said a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government protocol.

He arrived in Turkey from Amsterdam on Nov. 14 — the day after the Paris attacks. “There is no record of the Belgian authorities having warned Turkey about Dahmani — which is why there was no entry ban,” the official said, adding, “Had the Belgian authorities alerted us in due time, Dahmani could have been apprehended at the airport.”

The storming on Friday of a hotel in Bamako, Mali, added to the anxieties in Belgium. Six Belgians were held hostage in the hotel, of whom four were released and two were killed, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Saturday.

獲報恐攻在即！布魯塞爾防恐警戒 急升最高級

布魯塞爾防恐警戒升到最高級，比利時總理米歇爾說，收到精確訊息有人要在布魯塞爾發動像巴黎的恐怖攻擊，布魯塞爾地鐵、所有商店都已關閉，包括市中心及歐盟總部附近處處是軍車、荷槍實彈的軍警人員。

比利時政府在廿一日凌晨一點宣布將布魯塞爾恐怖威脅警戒層級從第三級提高到最高的第四級，其他城市則仍維持三級；這是比利時繼2007年底再度發出最高警示。

他們要複製巴黎恐攻…

米歇爾21日上午召開內閣緊急安全會議。他表示，布魯塞爾面臨跟巴黎一樣的恐怖攻擊，是由不同恐怖分子以武器和爆裂物發動，攻擊目標主要在購物中心、商店街及公共交通工具。

比利時軍警20日晚間仍在多處發動搜捕行動。檢方表示，涉及巴黎恐攻、且被列為危險人物的阿布岱斯蘭仍然在逃，媒體宣稱有民眾發現阿布岱斯蘭19日晚間出現在布魯塞爾附近，但警方不願證實。

多家媒體報導，警方在20日晚間的搜捕行動中，查獲如同軍火庫般的大量武器及爆裂物，加上有嫌犯被捕；越來越多情資顯示有人正準備發動攻擊，才會在凌晨突然宣布升高警戒層級。

地鐵全關閉 軍車警察滿街

布魯塞爾市區地鐵本周末全關閉，周末原定的各種大型活動全都取消，周六上午原本部分開門的商店，下午全部宣布關閉；政府呼籲民眾，避免前往人潮聚集場所、音樂廳、機場、火車站、購物中心或商店街，並尊重安全檢查。

布魯塞爾市區及郊區多個原本周末人潮眾多的購物廣場，中午時都臨時宣布關閉，請民眾離場，還有多場音樂會都臨時宣布取消；包括歐盟總部等幾個敏感區域，布滿軍警人員及軍車，有民眾在網路上形容，現在的布魯塞爾宛如軍事基地。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/world/europe/brussels-placed-at-highest-alert-level-subway-is-closed.html

2015-11-22．聯合報．A13．國際．布魯塞爾記者蕭白雪