(AFP) Belgian police on Sunday arrested four youths over messages they exchanged allegedly plotting a jihadist attack deemed “imminent enough to intervene,” a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office told AFP.
The four — three minors in their “late teens” and an adult man aged 18 — were arrested when police raided home addresses in the cities of Brussels, Ninove, Charleroi and Liege, the spokesman, Eric Van Der Sypt, said.
No weapons or explosives were found. Police took away mobile phones and laptops for analysis, he said, confirming reports from Belgian media RTBF and HLN.
The messages the four exchanged on the internet about the alleged planned attack were “worrying enough to intervene, to do house searches,” Van Der Sypt said.
