Terrorism Raids in Belgium Yield 16 Arrests
Source: nytimes.com
BRUSSELS — After a dramatic security sweep late Sunday marked by the deployment of soldiers in the historic center of the Belgian capital, the authorities here announced early Monday that 16 people had been arrested in a joint police and military operation to try to head off what the prime minister earlier described as a “serious and imminent” threat of a Paris-style terrorist assault.
Belgian security forces conducted 19 raids in the Brussels region on Sunday and three in the southern town of Charleroi, Eric Van der Sijpt, a magistrate and spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office, said at a late-night news conference. Backed by heavily armed soldiers, the police also sealed off at least two areas of central Brussels, including streets around the city’s medieval central square, the Grand Place, a major tourist attraction.
But the main target of the clampdown, Salah Abdeslam, suspected to be one of the gunmen in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, was not among those arrested, Mr. Van der Sijpt said. The raids also uncovered no weapons or explosives, he added.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/23/world/europe/brussels-remains-on-highest-alert-level-as-manhunts-expand.html
Meanwhile, Belgium residents were told "not to let the cat out of the bag" about security operations on social media.
So they tweeted cats! #BelgiumLockDown about a kitty a minute
= new reply since forum marked as read
Dang, a lock down? What's a person to do when you are told to keep the cat in the bag? Of course, tweet kitten pics.
[center]
#BrusselsLockdown
The best hashtag on Twitter tonight is #BrusselsLockdown. Following on the heels of last week’s deadly Paris attacks, police in Belgium have been conducting operations in two major cities to arrest terror suspects linked to the attacks. Because of the extent and sensitive nature of the operations, the authorities asked residents to refrain from tweeting observations that could help the suspects identify and elude the police. The response of the Belgians, and then people from many other countries who joined them, has been nothing short of amazing: They flooded the identified hashtag with cat pictures!
...........
