10 held over terror plot in Belgium: prosecutors

Police on Tuesday detained 10 Islamists in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany suspected of plotting an attack in Belgium, the prosecutor’s office said.

The arrests were part of “an inquiry into international jihadist terror,” a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office told AFP.

“In total 10 people suspected of preparing an attack in Belgium were arrested in Belgium, Holland and Germany,” he said.

The suspects are from Belgium, the Netherlands, Morocco and Chechnya, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The group used the extremist website Ansar Al Mujahideen.

The target of the plot was unknown.

The raid followed a months-long investigation that was launched by authorities in the northern Belgian city of Antwerp in late 2009, the office said.

The investigation focused on recruiters, would-be “jihadists” and the financing of a Chechen “terrorist organisation,” it said.