A police officer and soldiers stand guard in the ‘Rue des Bouchers’ street, famous for its restaurants, following the terror alert level being elevated to 4/4, in Brussels, Belgium Photo: Stephanie Lecocq/EPA
Telegraph UK Rob Crilly, David Lawler, Eleanor Steafel and Danny Boyle
• Explosive belt found, may be linked to fugitive suspect
• Belgium charges man with taking part in Paris attacks
• Brussels remains in lockdown amid fears of “imminent attack”
• Cameron prepares to make case on Syria strikes in Commons
• France launches missions over Syria from aircraft carrier
• US issues rare worldwide travel alert due to terror threats
Suicide belt found in bin in Paris: Did terror suspect on the run get cold feet and ditch explosives?
Brussels at highest terror threat level amid new atrocity fears, as search for Paris attacks fugitive Salah Abdeslam and ‘several others’ goes on – latest
Brussels will stay at the highest security threat level for another week over fears of an imminent attack, the Belgian government said on Monday night, as the US issued a worldwide terror alert for its citizens.
On the third day of an unprecedented security lockdown in the Belgian capital, Charles Michel, the prime minister, warned that the threat of a co-ordinated attack in the institutional capital of Europe “remains serious and imminent”.
Belgian authorities charged a fourth person in connection with the bloodshed in Paris, when gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in an attack claimed by Isil, as an international manhunt continued for key suspect Salah Abdeslam.
French police sources said Monday they had found a suspected explosives belt in a suburb near the French capital where the 26-year-old was thought to have been on the night of the killings.
The item was found in a dustbin in Montrouge, south of Paris, where a person close to the enquiry said telephone data placed Belgian-born Abdeslam on the night of November 13.
Another police source said the belt appeared to have “the same configuration” as those used by the jihadists who carried out the killings in the French capital, the country’s worst such attacks. Its discovery raised suspicions that Abdelslam may have abandoned his mission.
Washington and Paris, meanwhile, stepped up their fight against Isil, withFrance launching its first strikes from a newly deployed aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean and the US calling for more international co-operation against the group.
PROFILE
Salah Abdeslam
Rented a black VW Polo in Belgium which was found abandoned near the Bataclan concert hall. Slipped through the fingers of French police when they stopped the car as he and two alleged accomplices were driving back to Belgium the morning after the Paris attacks. Despite a massive police and army operation he remains the most wanted man in Europe.
Between 2009 and 2011 Abdeslam worked as a mechanic for STIB, the Belgian state railway, working in a district Brussels.
He also ran a number of business ventures with his brother Ibrahim, and other family members.
Salah’s brother, Ibrahim, 31, blew himself up during the Le Comptoir Voltaire restaurant attack.
Underlining heightened global fears of attacks after Islamists killed scores in Mali, Turkey and Nigeria in recent weeks, the US issued a worldwide travel alert warning American citizens of “increased terrorist threats”.
“Current information suggests that Isil, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and other terrorist groups continue to plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions,” said a State Department travel advisory.
Coercion Code - "Dark Times are upon us" 