BRUSSELS — Belgian police have arrested two people suspected of plotting attacks against landmarks in Brussels during New Year celebrations, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The federal prosecutor’s office in Brussels, the home of the European Union, said police seized military-style uniforms and Daesh propaganda in the raids on Sunday and Monday.
But investigators said the police action was not linked to the wave of deadly attacks in Paris in November which France says were prepared in Belgium.
One of the two was arrested on suspicion of planning attacks as well as “playing a lead role in the activities of a terrorist group and recruiting for terrorist acts,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The second faced charges of planning and “participating in the activities of a terrorist group,” it said.
“The investigation cast a light on serious threats of attacks believed to be aimed at several emblematic sites in Brussels and which would be carried out during the end-of-year celebrations.”
The suspects were arrested during raids in the Brussels area, in Flemish Brabant and near the southern French-speaking city of Liege.
The raids were ordered by an investigating magistrate in Brussels who specializes in terrorism cases.
A total of six people were detained, including the two suspected of plotting attacks, but the four others were later released, the prosecutor’s office said.
The raids turned up neither weapons nor explosives, but investigators found computer hardware, military-style training uniforms and Daesh propaganda material, prosecutors said.
The Belgian authorities are still looking for suspects linked to the Nov. 13 attacks on a Paris concert hall, restaurants, bars and the national stadium which left 130 people dead.
On Nov. 21, after the Paris attacks that killed 130 and injured hundreds, the terrorist alert level for all of the Belgian capital was temporarily raised to its maximum level.
Police and soldiers in Brussels have also been ordered to take special precautions to ensure their own safety, said Benoit Ramacker, spokesman for the Belgian government’s Crisis Center.
Police and army patrols were greatly beefed up in Brussels following the Paris attacks, and Ramacker said a new official threat assessment conducted after the latest searches and arrests concluded the officers and soldiers deployed to protect others from extremist attacks might become targets themselves.
