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Belgium charges 3 members of ISIS-Khorasan for Paris Olympics

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Three suspected members of the Afghan branch of Islamic State, ISIS-Khorasan, who were arrested in raids in Belgium, were charged on Friday with planning a terrorist attack, the public prosecutor’s office said.

Four other people arrested during house raids across the country on Thursday have been released. Three of them were released after questioning by an investigating judge, the Public Prosecution Service said.

According to prosecutors, all seven people arrested in the Brussels region and in cities such as Antwerp, Liège and Ghent were from Chechnya. The three who were charged are suspected of being members of ISIS-Khorasan.

Prosecutors said there was no indication the suspects had already chosen a specific target. They declined to provide further information.

People protest against the Iranian regime during a meeting of the European Union (EU) Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, Belgium, January 23, 2023. (Photo: REUTERS/JOHANNA GERON)

Belgian media reported that investigators did not want to take any risks so close to the Olympic Games in Paris. The prosecutor’s office did not respond to a question from Reuters about a possible connection with the Games, the opening ceremony of which was scheduled for Friday evening.

Belgium as a hotbed for terrorist planning

France’s counter-terrorism prosecutor told Reuters that no arrests or searches had been made in France as part of the investigation, but he did not say whether French authorities were involved.

The perpetrators of the 2015 Paris attacks, which killed 130 people and injured 368, planned and coordinated their attacks largely from neighboring Belgium. Several of the perpetrators were Belgian citizens or residents.

In 2016, bombings at Brussels airport killed 34 people and injured 340. One of those convicted of the attacks was Salah Abdeslam, who was also the main suspect in the Paris attacks trial.



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