5 more held in new raids as soldiers patrol streets of Brussels

Belgium has detained five more people following raids on Monday morning in the Brussels and Liege regions as it searches the country’s links to the Paris attacks, federal prosecutors said. The federal prosecutors’ office said it had carried out five raids in the Brussels area and two around the eastern city of Liege. Soldiers continue to patrol the streets of Brussels and guardEuropean Union buildings on the third day of a security lockdown on Monday. Belgian national Salah Abdeslam has not been found despite 19 raids and 16 arrests overnight and authorities are still warning of possible imminent attacks like those in the French capital, in which 130 people were killed.

It feels strange to see armed soldiers in the streets but this is for our security. So, I don’t know why, but I am not afraid.

Zineb Toubarhi, a business engineering student in Brussels

The metro, museums and schools, many shops and cinemas will stay shut on Monday in the usually bustling EU capital where many staff will stay to work from home. Prime Minister Charles Michel said the city of 1.2 million will remain on Belgium’s fourth and highest level of security threat, meaning the threat of an attack was “serious and imminent”. "What we fear is an attack similar to the one in Paris, with several individuals who could possibly launch several attacks at the same time in multiple locations,“ he told a news conference. Germany has kept security along its border with Belgium at a high level since the Paris attacks, after media reports that Abdeslam was spotted near the frontier.

Apart from the closed metro and schools, life goes on in Brussels, the public sector is open for business today, many companies are open.

Interior Minister Jan Jambon

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