Anti-terror police in Belgium smash ISIS cell
POLICE in Belgium have arrested ten people suspected of being part of a recruitment ring for Islamic State (ISIS) militants.
One of the Paris attackers was from Belgium
Armed officers stormed homes in the Brussels area and made the arrests as part of an ongoing investigation into the recruitment of people for the terror regime.
Prosecutors said they had also seized computer equipment and mobile phones.
Belgium's federal prosecutors said in a statement: "Our investigation points to several persons having left for Syria to join Islamic State."
The country has one of the highest per capita rates of participation in militant groups such as Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Islamic State: The Facts
A total of nine raids were carried out in four suburbs, including the Molenbeek neighborhood where many extremists have stayed.
One of the ISIS terrorists behind the Paris massacre on November 13 was Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national born in Belgium.
The attack on the French capital left 130 people dead and more than 300 injured after gunmen struck at the Stade de France, Bataclan club and bars and restaurants.
Salah Abdeslam
Abdeslam, who is from Brussels, was operating in the Bataclan with his brother who died while carrying out the terror attack.
He is believed to have fled through Belgium and on his way he was stopped at a border checkpoint set up following the Paris attacks but was waved on by police and remains at large.
Armed police in Molenbeek, Belgium, hunt for Abdeslam after the Paris massacre
The Bataclan nightclub in Paris was targeted by ISIS gunman Abdeslam from Brussels
Human rights expert Elzbieta Karskae told the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on November 2 that an ever-growing network of jihadis were signing up in Belgium - 11 days before the Paris attacks.
Ms Karskae revealed that at least 500 men and women from the country had fled to the Middle East to join a 25,000-strong group of radicalised foreign fighters
She said recruiters were finding people via social media and from informal networks of family and friends.