On 15 January 2015,

Belgian police Law enforcement in Belgium is conducted by an integrated police service structured on the federal and local levels, made up of the Federal Police (Belgium), Federal Police and the Local police, Local Police. Both forces are autonomous and subor ...

carried out a raid on premises in

Verviers Verviers (; ) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Ensival, Heusy, Lambermont, Petit-Rechain, Stembert, and Verviers. It is also the cent ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. According to news sources, the raids were an

anti-terrorist Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to co ...

operation against Islamist

radicals Radical (from Latin: ', root) may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Classical radicalism, the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and Latin America in the 19th century *Radical politics ...

Operations

Two suspects died in the raids, which involved heavy gunfire, with a third being seriously wounded. Other operations were carried out in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

and the nearby municipalities of

Schaerbeek (French language, French, ; former History of Dutch orthography, Dutch spelling) or (modern Dutch language, Dutch, ) is one of the List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, 19 municipalities of the Brussels, Brussels-Capital Reg ...

Molenbeek-Saint-Jean (French language, French, ) or (Dutch language, Dutch, ), often simply called Molenbeek, is one of the List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the western p ...

Vilvoorde Vilvoorde (; ; ; historically known as ''Filford'' in English) is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality and City status in Belgium, city in the Halle-Vilvoorde district (''arrondissement'') of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Flemish Bra ...

, and

Zaventem Zaventem () is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is located in the Dijleland area, one of the three large recreational areas which together form the '' Groene Gordel'' ("Green Belt") around th ...

. An armed man was reported to have been arrested in Brussels. The Belgian prosecutor's office stated that the raids were an operation against a

jihadist Jihadism is a neologism for modern, armed militant Political aspects of Islam, Islamic movements that seek to Islamic state, establish states based on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief that armed confrontation ...

terrorist cell, reportedly believed to have links to

ISIS Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...

, on the verge of committing a terrorist attack. Police are investigating the possibility of links to the ''Charlie Hebdo'' shooting in neighbouring France. The men killed in the raid, Redouane Hagaoui and Tarik Jadaoun, were alleged by police to have been planning to attack sellers of the "survivors' issue" of ''Charlie Hebdo'' released following the attack in Paris.

Response

On 17 January 2015, the Belgian government began a deployment of troops throughout Belgium to defend potential terrorist targets,

Operation Vigilant Guardian Operation Vigilant Guardian was a Belgian army operation following the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks and the dismantling of a terrorist cell in Verviers having foiled attacks imminent, to deal with the terrorist threat and protect the "poin ...

Verviers terror cell trial

A trial against 16 members of the terrorist cell dismantled in Verviers began in 2016. Nine of the defendants were still at large and tried ''in absentia'', including two Belgian, five French, one Moroccan and one Dutch national, who were thought to be fighting for the ISIL in Syria, to be in hiding or to be deceased. Belgian police said the group was on the verge of a coordinated attack of killing police officers in public roads and in police stations, and police had found "Kalashnikov assault rifles, explosives, ammunition and communications equipment – along with police uniforms that could have been used for the plot" during the raids. The cell was found to have been led by

Abdelhamid Abaaoud Abdelhamid Abaaoud (; 8 April 1987 – 18 November 2015) was a Belgian-born Islamic terrorist who had spent time in Syria and was suspected of having organized multiple terror attacks in Belgium and France, and is known to have masterminded th ...

via telephone from

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, who evaded capture in the Greek capital. A member of the

Brussels ISIL terror cell The Brussels Islamic State terror cell was an Islamic terrorist sub-group involved in large-scale terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 (130 killed) and Brussels in March 2016 (32 killed). The terror cell was connected to the Islamic Sta ...

, he later had a leading role in the

November 2015 Paris attacks A series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks took place on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France, and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 21:16, three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France in Saint-De ...

. In 2016, members of the cell were sentenced to between 8 and 16 years imprisonment.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Verviers police raid, 2015 2015 in Brussels Attacks in Europe in 2015 Counterterrorism in Belgium Deaths by firearm in Belgium Islamic terrorism in Belgium January 2015 in Belgium January 2015 Île-de-France attacks History of Liège Province Law enforcement operations against Islamist groups Terrorist incidents in Belgium in 2015 Verviers

Operations

Response

Verviers terror cell trial

See also

References