Breaking news
Belgium deploys soldiers in the streets of the country to response to the recent terrorist attacks 1.
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Defence & Security News - Belgium
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| Belgium deploys soldiers in the streets of the country to response to the recent terrorist attacks. | |||
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Belgian government has taken the decision this Saturday, January 17, 2015 to deploy soldiers from the army to response to the recent terror attacks. Armed police patrolled government buildings in Belgium two days after two suspected extremists were killed in anti-terror raids.
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 A Belgian paratrooper guards outside a Jewish school in the central city of Antwerp |
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Two people were killed Thursday, January 15, 2015, in an anti-terrorism operation near a train station in the eastern Belgian city of Verviers as authorities widened their investigation into last week’s terrorist attacks in France to include potential accomplices in Belgium and Spain.
Belgian secret service agents called in the armed police raid when intelligence indicated the terror cell was about to carry out an attack. Following the raid, police found four Kalashnikov AK47 rifles, four handguns, ammunition and explosives. The terrorist cell was also equipped with police uniforms, radio, false documentation and an "important sum of cash". Up to 300 soldiers will be gradually deployed in the capital Brussels and the northern city of Antwerp, which has a large Jewish population, Prime Minister Charles Michel's office said in a statement on Saturday. "The Belgian troops will be armed and their primary responsibility will be to survey certain sites" and to reinforce police, the prime minister's statement said. The soldiers will initially be stationed at locations such as the US and Israeli embassies in Brussels and NATO and European Union institutions. "It's very important to say that this wasn't a simple decision. But it was necessary, at a time when police are overly engaged, for the army to enter in a supporting role," said Steven Vandeput. |
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 Belgian soldiers patrol outside the European Commission headquarters in central Brussels. |
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