Belgium police kill 2 suspected militants as terror threat spreads

Europe's terror crisis is not over. First, France and now Belgium where police have shot dead two alleged militants in a gun battle Thursday, reportedly foiling plans of an imminent attack suspected to involve jihadists who had returned from Syria.

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Belgian police enter a building in Palais street, near Colline street in Verviers, eastern Belgium, on January 15, 2015, as police set a large security perimeter around the number 6 of Colline street. AFP PHOTO / BELGA PHOTO / BRUNO FAHY

Belgium raid on alleged terror group kills two

Verviers, Belgium, Jan 15, AFP – Belgian police shot dead two alleged militants in a gun battle Thursday during a huge operation to prevent what they called imminent terrorist attacks, raising fresh alarm for Europe days after 17 people were killed in Paris.

A third person was arrested after the bloody shootout in the eastern town of Verviers, near the German border, which targeted a cell of the latest in a series of young Europeans said to have returned from jihad in Syria.

Police also conducted around a dozen searches in Brussels and its suburbs in a sweep that came on the heels of last week's Islamist attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

"This operational cell of about ten people, some of whom had returned from Syria, was on the point of launching significant terrorist attacks in Belgium," Thierry Werts of the Belgian federal prosecutor's office told a press conference in Brussels.

Belgium's federal prosecutor spokesman Eric Van der Sypt (C) talks to the press at a press conference in Brussels, on January 15, 2015, after an anti-terrorist operation during which two were reportedly killed. AFP PHOTO / EMMANUEL DUNAND

"During the search, certain suspects immediately opened fire at special forces of the police with automatic weapons. They opened fire for several minutes. Two suspects were killed and a third was arrested."

Prime Minister Charles Michel said the raid showed Belgium's "determination to fight those who want to spread terror".

Belgian authorities raised the security alert for official buildings to its second highest level, saying that the thwarted attack had intended to target police.

No police or civilians were hurt in the operation in Verviers, a city with a large Muslim population some 125 kilometres  from Brussels, prosecutors said.

In video footage shown on Belgian television, gunshots and explosions could be heard for several minutes and a blaze apparently erupted in the property.

Werts said that "even after one of the suspects was lying on the ground injured, he continued to fire."

"I heard two explosions. I left, then I saw two young people run – Arab types between 25 and 30 – who hurtled down in the dark with woolly hats on their heads," local resident Yilmaz, 41, told the Libre Belgique newspaper.

Redouane, 65, a Belgian of Moroccan origin, said: "People are terrorised. They cannot leave their homes. There are terrorists in Verviers.... My wife and I cannot take it anymore."

Another local resident said "machineguns were firing for about 10 minutes."

Belgian police enter a building in Palais street, near Colline street in Verviers, eastern Belgium, on January 15, 2015, as police set a large security perimeter around the number 6 of Colline street. AFP PHOTO / BELGA PHOTO / BRUNO FAHY

Some 325 people have left Belgium to fight with the Islamic State and other groups in Iraq and Syria, according to officials, giving the country the highest per capita number of residents becoming jihadists in Europe.

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