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Police in Belgium have arrested three people suspected of plotting an attack on the country’s prime minister, Bart de Wever.<\/p>\n
The alleged plot was described by prosecutors as a “jihadist-inspired terrorist attack” on the PM and other politicians.<\/p>\n
Authorities found a suspected improvised explosive device and evidence the suspects were planning to use a drone during searches in Deurne, Antwerp, close to the prime minister’s private residence.<\/p>\n
The intended targets of the attack were not named by the prosecutor’s office, but Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot said that de Wever was among them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“The news of a planned attack targeting Prime Minister Bart de Wever is extremely shocking,” Prevot wrote in a post on X on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“It highlights that we are facing a very real terrorist threat and that we have to remain vigilant,” he added.<\/p>\n
The three individuals who were arrested on suspicion of attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group all live in Antwerp, according to the prosecutor’s office. They were were born in 2001, 2002 and 2007.<\/p>\n
As of Thursday evening, one of the individuals was released, with two others still being questioned and expected to appear in court on Friday.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors said they were taken into custody after a judge ordered searches of their homes in the city by police officers backed by explosive sniffer dogs.<\/p>\n
It was during these searches that they discovered a device which “bore strong resemblances to an improvised explosive device,” federal prosecutor Ann Fransen said at a press conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Searches also uncovered a “bag of steel balls” and a 3D printer, with “indications that they intended to use a drone to attach a payload,” she added.<\/p>\n
Fransen said that there had been 80 terrorism investigations opened in Belgium this year – more than the total number of cases in 2024. <\/p>\n
In April, five people were convicted of a 2023 plot to attack De Wever while he was serving as Antwerp’s mayor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n