Posted on 06/08/2004 8:10:53 AM PDT by Valin
BRUSSELS, June 8 (Reuters) - Belgian police have arrested 15 people on suspicion of planning terror attacks in coordinated raids that also spanned Italy, France and Spain, officials said on Tuesday.
Italy earlier arrested an Egyptian man considered to be a mastermind of the Madrid train bombings in the first Europe-wide raids on Islamic militants linked to the March attack in which 191 people were killed.
"We know them to be part of a terrorist group," the director of the federal police bureau of Brussels, Glenn Audenaert, told reporters.
He said 200 police were involved in the operation and that the group of those arrested included Jordanians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Moroccans.
He could not confirm any link between the detainees and the Madrid attacks, but said they were in the "early stages" of planning an attack.
He gave no details where the arrests took place or exactly what the 15 were planning.
Flemish television station VRT reported on its Web site that heavily armed and masked policemen had raided a house in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek early on Tuesday.
Belgian radio also reported that arrests had been made in Brussels and Antwerp.
Audenaert said the 15 had been under surveillance for some time, but police had found no guns or bomb-making equipment.
Maybe, but the article says:
"Audenaert said the 15 had been under surveillance for some time . . . ."
I think the timing may have something to do with the Osama offer of a truce back in April. The "window of opportunity" to accept the "offer" was sixty days (or maybe it was worded as two months, I forget). I recall that the end of the window was something like 15 June.
You have a good memory! One of the other reports did say that there was an imminent attack planned by the people they arrested today.
I think he just got his answer.
I'm guessing the Belgians then drove the 15 to their border with France and turned them loose.
"And don't come back!"
bttt
I also happen to be living in Europe right now, so I kind of made a mental note of the relative timing.
I cannot believe you would type such a thing!!
It should read 18 15-45.
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