Belgian police arrested Friday three more people as investigations into Tuesday's suicide bombings by radical militants in Brussels revealed more links to previous attacks in Paris last year.
The federal prosecutor's office said the operation was connected to the arrest in Paris on Thursday of another militant convicted in Belgium last year and suspected of plotting a new attack.
Friday’s raids were conducted in the Schaerbeek district as well as the Forest and Saint-Gilles neighbourhoods in the Belgian capital.
schaerbeek meiser vers 13h, 25/ 03/ 2016 pic.twitter.com/nupcMcSC5L
— makiona david (@makionagisa) March 25, 2016
One of the arrests was captured on camera by witnesses and shows the police surrounding one suspect, who appeared to have his daughter with him. He was shot in the leg by the police before being dragged away and arrested.
"We heard 'Don't move'. The man was sitting at the bus stop, a bus stop with a glass wall, and we heard a small detonation and a big detonation," Norman Kabir, 38, an electrician who lives and works nearby, told reporters.
"Then the police came, took the little girl who was shouting 'Dad', she seemed terrified and the man got shot in the leg anyway because he was still moving."
The man had a bag, which was initially thought to have explosives but did not according to the police.
schaerbeek meiser vers 13h, 25/ 03/ 2016 pic.twitter.com/fBhUSVUXtv
— makiona david (@makionagisa) March 25, 2016
Kabir added that “the police asked him to move his bag. He was lying on the ground, but he did it and pushed the bag and a robot from the mine-sweeping brigade arrived. It came, grabbed the bag and took it away, then they took the guy, put him in a car and left. It took 20 seconds."
Nine people in total have been arrested since Thursday in Belgium and two in Germany, as European authorities swoop on Islamic State group militants they link both to the Brussels bombings that killed 31 people and to the attacks in Paris last November that killed 130.
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The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings in Brussels airport and a metro train Tuesday. Investigators believe they were carried out by the same cell behind November's gun and bomb attacks in Paris.
The attacks in Belgium are the latest in a series of attacks and bombings by the extremist group which have been taking place over the past few months across the Middle East, but seem to get less media coverage.
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Since the beginning of the year several attacks by the Islamic State group took place in Turkey killing dozens. Also on Friday, two bombing by the same group targeted civilians in Yemen and Iraq killing more than 50 people in total.