Brussels (AFP) – Prosecutors on Sunday disclosed a growing Belgian connection to the Paris attacks as Premier Charles Michel conceded that a Brussels neighborhood is a “gigantic problem” given its past links to international terrorism.
Belgian prosecutors cooperating with their French counterparts said two assailants killed in Friday’s attacks were Frenchmen who had lived in Brussels, that two cars tied to the attacks found in Paris were rented in Belgium, and Belgian police have detained seven people.
At least one of the dead assailants and five of the people arrested in raids Saturday had spent time in the poor immigrant Brussels district of Molenbeek, officials said.
Belgium also issued an international warrant for the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, who lived in Molenbeek, while his brother Mohammed, who was arrested in this neighborhood while returning from Paris, is still in custody, officials said.
A third brother Brahim died after having set off his explosives-laden suicide belt near a cafe in Paris’ 11th district, investigators said.
The trail led to the three brothers following the discovery of two cars registered in Belgium, one of them near the Bataclan concert hall where 89 people were gunned down, and the other in a Paris suburb, Belgian prosecutors said.
The results of the probe so far highlight how Molenbeek has for two decades lodged Islamist extremists who have fought or supported wars in Algeria, Afghanistan and Bosnia as well as in Syria and Iraq, analyst Claude Moniquet told AFP.
– Jihadist ’hotbed’ –
“It’s not the only one in Belgium, it is certainly not the only one in Europe, but it is a hotbed for jihadism,” Moniquet said.
Belgium as a whole has spawned nearly 500 jihadists for Syria and Iraq from a population of only 11 million — the highest figure per capita in the European Union, security services said.