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Five held in Belgian anti-terror probe

Belgian police have detained five people for questioning in a terrorism case unrelated to the latest one in Paris, the Brussels bombings or the 2015 massacre in the French capital, prosecutors said Friday.

The arrests were made as police raided homes overnight Thursday in the Brussels region, seizing two firearms, ammunition, a bullet-proof vest and a quantity of cannabis, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“In all, five persons were arrested and taken for questioning,” it said, adding an investigating judge will decide later Friday or Saturday on whether to keep them in custody.

“All persons concerned are suspected of participation (in) the activities of a terrorist group,” the statement said.

The prosecutor’s office said the case was not linked to the one on the Champs Elysees in Paris late on Thursday when a gunman shot dead a police officer and wounded two others and a foreign tourist.

Nor is it linked to the March 22 bombings in Brussels last year when 32 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. And it is not connected to the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015, which killed 130 people and hurt hundreds more.