Reported Plot to Target Belgian Prime Minister Foiled
Belgian police have arrested three individuals suspected of plotting an attack on the country's PM, Bart de Wever.
Federal prosecutors labeled the reported plot as a terrorist act motivated by jihadist ideology targeting the PM and fellow government officials.
During raids conducted in Deurne, Antwerp, in proximity to the prime minister's private residence, authorities discovered a potential improvised explosive device and indications that the individuals were planning to deploy a UAV.
While the planned victims of the strike were not disclosed by name by the prosecutor's office, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot stated that de Wever was included in the targets.
"Reports of a planned strike aimed at Prime Minister Bart de Wever is extremely shocking," the deputy prime minister stated in a message on online platforms on Thursday.
"This underscores that we are confronting a very real terrorism risk and that we have to stay alert," he continued.
The three people taken into custody on suspicion of plotting a terrorist killing and participation in the operations of a jihadist network all are based in the Antwerp region, as stated by the legal authorities. They were with years of birth in 2001, 2002 and 2007.
As of late Thursday, one person was released, while the remaining two were undergoing questioning and expected to face a judge on the following day.
The prosecution said that the accused were arrested after a judge ordered raids of their residences in the city by law enforcement backed by explosives-trained dogs.
In the course of these raids that they located a item which appeared to be an IED, federal prosecutor Ann Fransen stated at a media briefing on Thursday.
Searches also found a "bag of steel balls" and a three-dimensional printer, with signs of drone weaponization plans, she continued.
Fransen stated that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases launched in the nation in the current year - surpassing the overall count of cases in last year.
During the spring, five suspects were sentenced for a 2023 plot to target De Wever while he was acting as the city's chief executive.
