Arrests made in connection with Brussels attacks, prosecutor says

Several arrests have been made in the investigation of last month’s deadly terror attacks in Brussels, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office announced Friday.

The office did not name the suspects or give any other information.

The March 22 attacks on Brussels’ Maelbeek metro station and the city’s airport killed 32 people, authorities have said.

Belgium has been a focal point in the fight against terror.

Brussels’ Molenbeek neighborhood, in particular, has developed a reputation as a hotbed for jihadists. Several of those involved in November’s terror attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people, had lived in the Belgian capital.

ISIS claimed responsibility for both the Brussels and Paris attacks.

Authorities have further tied together these attacks — suggesting Friday’s arrests ultimately could be related to either Paris, Brussels or both.

A senior counterterrorism official told CNN that Salah Abdeslam — alleged to have been the eighth planned attacker in Paris, only to escape — was probably going to be part of an attack planned by the ISIS cell that carried out the Brussels carnage. The 26-year-old was captured in Molenbeek four days before the Brussels attacks.

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