BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgium has arrested two more men suspected of links to the Paris attacks on Nov. 13 in which 130 people were killed, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.
The men, identified as Belgian national Zakaria J., born in 1986 and Moroccan national Mustafa E., born in 1981, were arrested during two house searches on Wednesday and Thursday morning in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, prosecutors said.
“Both were arrested due to their possible ties with different suspects in this case,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “The Investigating Judge will decide later today upon their possible further detention.”
No arms or explosives were found during the searches, it added.
Since the November Paris attacks federal prosecutors have already taken 10 people into custody over their suspected involvement, which appear to have been prepared mainly in Belgium.
If the two latest detainees are kept in custody, their number would rise to 12.
Last week, investigators said a number of the Paris attackers used two apartments and a house in Belgium as possible safe houses in the weeks leading up to their coordinated shooting and suicide bomb assault on the French capital.
They also found a possible bomb factory for the Paris attacks in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek, with traces of explosives.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Dominic Evans)
