Jan. 16--REPORTING FROM PARIS -- Officials arrested 15 people and searched a dozen sites in a counter-terrorism sweep overnight in Belgium and France that left two suspects dead after clashes with police in the Belgian city of Verviers, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Two of those arrested were Belgian nationals in France, and Belgian prosecutors said they are seeking to extradite those individuals.
But at a briefing, prosecutors stressed that their investigation of the terrorist cell was limited to Belgium and was unrelated to last week's attacks in Paris in which two brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, stormed the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people. Fellow attacker Amedy Coulibaly is believed to have killed a policewoman and later took hostages at a kosher supermarket, killing four.
All three assailants were killed in clashes with police.
"This operation last night was not part of a large-scale European operation," federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said. "It was a Belgian cell in Belgium."
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said later Friday that he may call on the army to strengthen security, not policing but carrying out specific monitoring missions.
"At present, we have no knowledge of a concrete and specific threat," he said, according to the Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir. "But we know that zero risk does not exist, either in Belgium or elsewhere."
Calling on the army is one of a dozen possible new measures to counter terrorism, Michel said. Others include withdrawing passports of suspects who pose a risk to public safety, freezing the assets of those suspected of financing terrorism, strengthening penalties for terrorist activity, improving monitoring of those believed to be foreign fighters and training prison staff to combat radicalization of inmates.
In Verviers, the police searches recovered all the trappings of a terrorist plot: four AK-47 rifles, ammunition, explosives, fake documents, cellphones, walkie-talkies, large sums of money and police uniforms, prosecutors said.
"We know that the aim was to kill police officers on public roads and in police offices, and we found police uniforms, which supports that," Sypt said.
"I cannot confirm that we arrested everyone in this group," Sypt said, adding that authorities believe that the suspects were within hours of attacking.
Prosecutors declined to comment on reports that the suspects had planned to behead a police officer. They also refused to identify those killed or their nationality. They have said some members of the terrorist cell had returned from fighting in Syria.
Verviers is a town of about 55,000 people on the border with Germany. Police said they also conducted searches in Molenbeek, Anderlecht, Brussels, Berchem-Sainte-Agathe and Liedekerke.
They reported one arrest in Verviers, nine in Molenbeek, two in Brussels and one in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe. Two more suspects were stopped in France, they said.
Authorities said they also investigating possible links between Coulibaly and a man they arrested Thursday in the southern city of Charleroi on charges connected to the illegal trade in weapons.
Spain and Turkey are also involved in the hunt for the Paris attackers' accomplices. The Kouachi brothers claimed allegiance to Al Qaeda in Yemen; Coulibaly to Islamic State.
Jewish schools in Brussels and Antwerp closed Friday after officials said they were a "potential target" for Muslim extremists, reported Belgian news site Joods Actueel.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders announced in a radio interview Friday that the sweeping domestic anti-terror operation in Belgium after the Paris attacks was over and that "no police and intelligence services confirm, for the moment, a formal link between these two events."
However, he stressed the importance of neighboring European countries sharing information.
"I think this is the best way to prevent and not repeat what we experienced last year at the Jewish Museum in Brussels with Mehdi Nemmouche and what we have come to know in Paris," he said, referring to an attack last may by Nemmouche, a French Algerian Muslim extremist who opened fire at the museum, killing four.
UPDATE
6:55 a.m.: This article has been updated with comments from the Belgian prime minister.
5:19 a.m.: This article has been updated with additional details and background.
3:43 a.m.: This article has been updated with details on the arrests.
3:34 a.m.: This article has been updated with information from Belgian news site Joods Actueel.
This article was originally published at 3:19 a.m.
