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Six Arrested In Relation To Brussels Attacks

By Jessica Dafoe
Published on: 12:26 PST, Mar 24, 2016

Three days after Jihadist terrorists left 31 people dead in Brussels, Belgium, six men have been arrested in relation to the attacks.

According to the Associated French Press, after a series of police operations in the capital of Belgium on Thursday, six suspects were taken into custody, the federal prosecutor’s office has relayed. As the news publication shares, three suspects were held “outside the door of the federal prosecutor’s office,” in the center of the city, based on the words of Eric Van der Sypt, a spokesperson for the federal prosecutor’s office.

Two additional suspects were arrested in a different location within the city, while the sixth was held in Jette, which is on the border of the capital’s boundaries. The suspects’ identities were not released. The AFP shares the words of Van der Sypt as to future action.

“It will be decided tomorrow if an arrest warrant (charges) are brought against these people.”

A minimum of two men have also been identified by officials via airport surveillance footage as well as the city’s metro station footage, where the attacks took place.

There have also been raids that have taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek. The three airport attackers left from this district on Tuesday morning with three packed suitcases, filled with explosives in tow. No arrests have taken place in the neighborhood thus far.

There have been strong reactions to the fact that the said district was the home of the most recent group of terrorists. Surprise is the main sentiment felt on the matter, as Newsweek recently relayed, noting that the neighborhood of Schaerbeek seems a very “unlikely base for extremism.” An additional district that was found to have housed attackers was Molenbeek. Newsweek shares details about the districts that have become known as being the home of terrorists.

“Two days after the attacks in Brussels, and two districts of the Belgian capital have become infamous—even among people who have never visited the city. Molenbeek and Schaerbeek, home to the alleged Paris attackers and the Brussels bombers, are quickly developing a reputation, perhaps exaggerated, as hotbeds of extremism. But what about a place called Forest?”

It was in Forest that one of the suspected attackers who helped terrorize Paris on November 13 was said to be residing and was chased out by police who caught him five days later in Molenbeek. That suspect is Salah Abdeslam. It was only two days following his arrest that the attacks on Brussels occurred. The publication describes the location that Abdeslam was hiding out.

“The house where Abdeslam was almost caught is on the most unassuming of residential streets, the Rue du Dries. Before it lies a large plot of overgrown land, with a billboard perched in the center, promising that it will soon be home to residences. A children’s primary school opposite says it’s open for lessons, but the lights inside are switched off.”

A woman who was an unknowing neighbor to a man who, until his arrest, was one of the most wanted suspects related to the Paris attacks shares her shock at having learned she was so close to the detainee.

“I always thought that house wasn’t occupied. ”

Gita, who prefers her surname to be left out of reports, was not home when the police attempted arrest of the suspect. A local bodega owner, Showkat Khan was in the vicinity and describes the scene when officials approached the residence.

“The police went to number 60 and rang the doorbell. Then the terrorists started shooting at them.”

The search continues for additional believed terrorists from both the Paris and Brussels attacks.

[Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images]

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