2 terror suspects dead, 1 in custody after Belgium raid

Show Caption Hide Caption Belgian police killed two gunmen in anti-terror raid - official Belgian police kill two men who opened fire on them during about a dozen raids against a group that was about to launch "terrorist attacks on a grand scale," authorities said. Deborah Lutterbeck reports. Video provided by Reuters

Two terror suspects were killed and another was in custody after a police raid Thursday on a cell planning a "major, imminent attack" in Belgium, a magistrate said.

Those targeted in the raid had been under surveillance after recently returning to Belgium from Syria and were close to carrying out an attack on police buildings in the coming hours or days, Magistrate Eric Van der Sypt said at a news conference.

The raid in the industrial town of Verviers, about 80 miles southeast of the capital of Brussels, came amid heightened concerns over terrorism in Europe and after last week's attacks in Paris.

Van der Sypt said there was no known link to the Paris attacks that left 17 dead. The operation was part of a weeks-long investigation into extremists returning from Syria.

The suspects were killed during an intense firefight with authorities on the upper level of a building near a train station in Verviers. No civilians or officers were injured, Van der Sypt said. Witnesses said they heard a series of explosions followed by rapid gunfire.

"These were extremely well-armed men" with automatic weapons, Van der Sypt said.

Belgium raised its terror alert to its second-highest level, and additional anti-terror raids were underway near Brussels and Verviers, Van der Sypt said.

On Wednesday, Islamic State militants in a video threatened attacks on Belgium, the Brussels-based Belga news agency reported, according to AFP. A senior Belgian counterterrorism official told CNN the terror cell in Verviers had been instructed by the Islamic State to carry out attacks in Belgium and Europe in retaliation for U.S.-led airstrikes against the militants in Syria and Iraq.

Of the more than 2,500 people from the European Union suspected of fighting alongside militants in Syria and Iraq, at least 300 have come from tiny Belgium, according to the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalism. The nation, known for its banking and diamond-cutting centers, has a population of 11 million and ranks sixth for jihadist fighters — after Turkey, Germany, Britain, France and Russia, the center said.

European leaders have expressed concerns that citizens returning from the Middle East — who are free to cross European borders and have a hardened ideology as well as battlefield experience — pose a grave threat of bringing their war home.

Earlier Thursday, The Wall Street Journal, citing Belgian media, reported that Amedy Coulibaly, 32, may have bought weapons in Belgium that he used to attack a kosher supermarket in Paris last week, leaving four dead. An unnamed Belgian police official told the newspaper that Coulibaly was looking for weapons in Belgium, but it's not clear whether he purchased them there.

The Journal said the links tying Coulibaly to a Belgian man who said he bought a car from Coulibaly's wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, were murky. Belgian authorities are investigating a possible connection between the two after the man was arrested in the southern Charleroi region for allegedly trading in weapons, Van der Sypt said Thursday.

The Belgian man's name has not been released. Boumeddiene may have fled to Syria. The Charleroi region is more than 70 miles southwest of Verviers and about 40 miles south of Brussels.

A machine gun and handgun used by Coulibaly came from Brussels and Charleroi, The Telegraph in London reported, citing unnamed police sources. In addition, the Kalashnikov rifles used by Cherif Kouachi and his brother Said in the Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo's offices that left 12 dead were purchased by Coulibably in Brussels, The Telegraph reported.

Contributing: The Associated Press