Two killed in raid on suspected Belgian terrorists

The Belgian federal prosecutors' office told reporters in Brussels on Thursday evening that the two men killed were suspects who opened fire with automatic weapons when police raided a property in the eastern town of Verviers.

"The searches were carried out as part of an investigation into an operational cell some of whose members had returned from Syria," a spokesman for the prosecutors' office, Eric Van Der Sypt said.

"The suspects immediately and for several minutes opened fire with military weaponry and handguns on the special units of the federal police before they were neutralized," he added.

A third suspect was arrested by police but there were conflicting reports as to whether he had been wounded in the gunfight. No police officers were reported injured.

Van Der Sypt said this and at least 10 other raids in Brussels and Verviers were launched on Thursday because the investigation had led them to believe that the Islamist group was about to launch "substantial terrorist attacks in Belgium."

All three suspects are nationals of Belgium, which is understood to have the largest per capita population of jihadists in Europe.

The raids comes just days after 17 people were killed in terrorist attacks in and around Paris, but Van Der Sypt said that at this point, there was no evidence to link them.

Another news conference is to be held on Friday.

'Fear must change sides'

Late on Thursday, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel gave his first comment on the raids.

"This shows the determination of the Belgian government to combat those who sow terror," Michel said, according to the AFP news agency, which cited the prime minister's spokesman. "The fear must change sides," Michel added.

According to the spokesman, the prime minister, along with his interior and justice ministers were following developments by the minute, with the counter-terror operations continuing just before midnight local time (2300 UTC).

In a separate development, Belgian police announced earlier on Thursday that they had arrested a man in the southern city of Charleroi, who they believe may have supplied the gunman in the deadly hostage-taking in a kosher supermarket in Paris last Friday.

pfd/rc (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)