Belgian police arrest seven people over terror attack plot

Belgian police have arrested seven people suspected of supporting Islamic State (IS) and plotting a “terrorist attack”, prosecutors have said.

Almost all the suspects are ethnic Chechens, and three possess Belgian nationality, prosecutors said in a statement on Thursday.

They said: “The exact target of the planned attack has not yet been determined.”

Police raided nine addresses in several towns in western Belgium in an operation led by an investigating judge specialising in terrorism cases. The judge will decide “at a later stage” if there is sufficient evidence to charge the suspects, the statement said.

“Possible charges are attempted terrorist assassination, participation in the activities of a terrorist group and the preparation of a terrorist attack,” it said.

Prosecutors added that all seven “are suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Belgium”.

They all “belong to a group of strong supporters of the IS”.

Eric Van Duyse, a spokesperson for the federal prosecutors’ office, said “they apparently intended to target an institution located in Belgium” and had been “actively searching for weapons”.

The police raids took place in the city of Ghent and the smaller towns of Roeselare, Menen, Ostend and Wevelgem.

IS claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Belgium on 22 March 2016 which targeted Brussels’ airport and Maelbeek metro station, killing 32 people and wounding hundreds.

Those bombings occurred months after the November 2015 attacks in Paris which were planned by the same IS cell and which killed 130 people.

Chechnya, a republic in Russia’s North Caucasus region, has a predominantly Muslim population. It is ruled by the pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who supports Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine and has sent his militia there to fight.