BREAKING NEWS

Belgium has placed Brussels at the highest terror alert level, citing a "serious and imminent threat."


Belgium warns of 'serious and imminent threat' to Brussels

By Michael Martinez, Ed Payne, Catherine E. Shoichet and Margot Haddad, CNN
Updated 9:00 PM ET, Fri November 20, 2015 | Video Source: CNN

Paris (CNN)Belgium has placed Brussels at the highest terror alert level, citing a "serious and imminent threat that requires taking specific security measures as well as specific recommendations for the population."

The announcement by the Crisis Centre of the Belgian Interior Ministry is advising the public to avoid places where large groups gather -- such as concerts, sporting events, airports and train stations -- and comply with security checks. The rest of the nation will maintain its current terror level.

The increase in alert level for Brussels comes as authorities investigating last week's terror attacks in Paris conduct raids in Belgium as they work to identify and take down the network of terrorists behind the carnage.

Salah Abdeslam, 26, is the subject of an international search warrant. He was last seen driving toward the Belgian border when police stopped and questioned him a few hours after the attacks, not knowing that he was allegedly involved. His whereabouts are unknown.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.

Abdeslam is one of two brothers allegedly involved in last week's coordinated attacks at the Bataclan concert hall, outside the French national soccer stadium and at restaurants in Paris.

Though he's a French national, he was born in Belgium.

That's one of several connections between this latest attack and Belgium, a country seen as fertile ground for jihadist recruiters. It's where members of a suspected terror cell waged a deadly gun battle in January with police and where three Americans in August overpowered a radical Islamist gunman on a Paris-bound train.

It was also home to suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud. He was killed during a dramatic raid that shook the Saint-Denis neighborhood outside Paris and collapsed an entire floor of an apartment building.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Abaaoud "played a decisive role" in the Paris attacks and played a part in four of six terror attacks foiled since spring, with one alleged jihadist claiming Abaaoud had trained him personally.

He was once allegedly involved in gangs in Molenbeek.

Belgian special operations forces raided that impoverished Brussels suburb, which has a history of links to terror plots, on Monday.

Thursday, Belgian authorities detained nine in raids around that country, the federal prosecutor's office said. Seven of those people were questioned after six raids around Brussels related to Bilal Hadfi, one of those who blew himself up outside the Stade de France.

http://blog.tsa.gov/2015/11/tsa-week...earms-ten.html