Belgian police today arrested 14 men suspected of being Al-Qaeda members including a suicider.
The BBC reported:
Belgian police say they have arrested 14 people suspected of being members of the al-Qaeda network.
They include a man believed to have been about to launch a suicide attack, officials said.
Federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle said police did not know where the suspected suicide attack was to target.
“It could have been an operation in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but it can’t be ruled out that Belgium or Europe could have been the target,” he said.
Broadcaster RTBF quoted unnamed justice sources as saying the thwarted attack could have been on a two-day European Union leaders’ summit starting on Thursday, via Reuters.
Malika El-Aroud is the widow of one of the men who killed Afghan anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. (CNN)
UPDATE: The Belgian police arrested an Al-Qaeda living legend.
CNN reported:
The federal prosecutor’s office in Belgium identified one of the suspects as Malika El-Aroud, the widow of one of the men who assassinated a key opponent of the Taliban in Afghanistan two days before September 11, 2001.
El-Aroud’s late husband was one of two men who killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of the Northern Alliance, in a suicide mission ordered by Osama Bin Laden.
Belgian police aimed to prevent El-Aroud, whom the police source called an “al-Qaeda living legend,” from moving to Afghanistan to play a role in the fight against the coalition forces there, the source said.