New terror strike feared in Europe
There could be as many as 20 sleeper cells of between 120 and 180 people ready to strike in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, a Western intelligence source has told CNN.
The source told CNN national correspondent Deborah Feyerick that European Union and Middle East intelligence agencies had identified an "imminent threat" to Belgium, and possibly also to the Netherlands.
The warning comes against the backdrop of the deadly attacks in Paris last week and anti-terror raids in Belgium on Thursday that have European counterterrorism agencies scrambling to identify and thwart potential threats.
European security services in recent weeks have received indications that the extremist group ISIS may have started directing European adherents in Syria and Iraq to launch attacks in their home countries, a senior European counterterrorism official told CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.
The official said security agencies in a number of European countries were investigating groups of returnees from Syria and Iraq, including people back on Belgian soil, who they suspect could be plotting terrorist attacks.
Belgian police raided an Islamist cell planning attacks against police yesterday as dozens of people were arrested in sweeps across Europe, keeping the continent on alert one week after the Paris attacks.
Two suspected jihadists were shot dead in a police raid in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers on Thursday night and prosecutors said 13 suspects had been detained across Belgium, with two more held in France.
Belgian authorities said Thursday's raids were part of an operation investigating a cell that included people returning from Syria and that was about to carry out major terrorist attacks in Belgium.
Belgian federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said: “This operation was meant to dismantle a terrorist cell, not only the terrorist cell but also the logistic network behind it.”
Meanwhile, French police separately detained 12 people in the suburbs of Paris in connection with last week's attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, a Jewish supermarket and a policewoman, in which 17 people were killed.
The Gare de l'Est train station in Paris was evacuated for an hour over a bomb threat yesterday, train operator SNCF told the BBC. Services resumed at 09:00 local time, SNCF said, without giving further details.
A man who holed up in a post office in a suburb northwest of Paris with two hostages yesterday surrendered and has been arrested, a police source said.
"There was no assault, the man gave himself up", the source said, adding that the hostages were "shocked but not injured," source added.
French authorities say that about 120,000 police and soldiers are now mobilised across France and that anti-terror plans remain in place.
Hundreds of German police meanwhile raided alleged Islamist sites in Berlin, arresting two men suspected of being part of a group planning to carry out an attack in Syria.
The raids highlighted fears about young Europeans travelling to fight with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda-linked groups in the Middle East before returning to carry out attacks on western targets.
"The group was on the verge of carrying out terrorist attacks to kill police officers in public roads and in police stations," Belgian federal prosecutors' spokesman Eric Van der Sijpt told a news conference about the raids overnight.
Police found Kalashnikov assault rifles, explosives, ammunition and communications equipment, along with police uniforms that could have been used for the terror plot, he said.
Members of the group had recently returned from Syria, prosecutors said, but they said there still appeared to be no direct link to the Paris attacks, reports AFP.
Prime Minister Charles Michel raised Belgium's terror alert to its second highest level after the raids. The European Commission stepped up security at its headquarters in Brussels as a "precaution", a spokeswoman said.
Jewish schools in Brussels and the port city of Antwerp closed yesterday.
The senior European counterterrorism official told Cruickshank that investigators were working around the clock to learn about the potential attack plans of the returned ISIS fighters.
"This threat is not just about Belgium tonight, but it's also other European countries as well," Cruickshank said.
The Netherlands said yesterday it was not raising its terror threat level, currently at "substantial," the second-highest level.
The European counterterrorism official told Cruickshank that there was also significant concern about Khorasan, an al-Qaeda affiliate group, plotting attacks against Europe.
With France still reeling from the attacks which targeted its cherished traditions of free speech, US Secretary of State John Kerry laid wreaths yesterday at both Charlie Hebdo offices and the Jewish supermarket during a visit to Paris.
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