Belgian police have arrested six people in Brussels as a major investigation continues into attacks that claimed 31 lives in the city on Tuesday.
The arrests were made in the Schaerbeek district. Separately, in France, a suspect who was plotting an attack has been arrested near Paris.
The Brussels bombings have been linked to last November’s Paris attacks.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Brussels, said that so-called Islamic State (IS) would be destroyed.
IS claimed the attacks in both Paris and Brussels.
Standing alongside the Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, he expressed condolences for the victims and solidarity with Belgium, declaring “Je suis Bruxellois”.
The Western alliance would continue its fight to destroy IS, Mr Kerry said.
“We will not be intimidated. We will not be deterred.”
The arrests in Brussels were made late on Thursday, and followed house-to-house searches. Residents said they heard explosions during the police raids.
Belgian media reports on Friday suggest a seventh arrest has also been made in the Forest district of Brussels.
Also on Thursday evening, French police launched an anti-terrorism operation in Argenteuil, north-west of Paris, following the arrest hours earlier of a man suspected of planning an attack.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the suspected militant, a French national, was in an “advanced stage” of a plot.
The suspect, named as Reda Kriket, 34, was convicted in his absence by a Brussels court last year for recruiting IS members to go to Syria, officials say.
He was sentenced along with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, considered the main organiser of the Paris attacks and killed in a police raid in Paris days later.
Last November, 130 people died after militants opened fire and detonated bombs in a number of locations in the French capital.
Two suspects have also been arrested in north-western Germany in connection with the Brussels investigation, Der Spiegel is reporting.
One, called Samir E, was reportedly detained on Thursday afternoon in the Dusseldorf area and has links with the Brussels metro bomber, Khalid el-Bakraoui.
Another suspect, detained in the Giessen area on Wednesday, had suspicious text messages on his phone on the day of the Brussels bombings.
One, according to Der Spiegel, contained el-Bakraoui’s name; the other contained merely the word “end”, or “fin” in French.
More details of those killed in the Brussels attacks continue to emerge. Nationals of 40 countries were caught up in the attacks.
Among the deaths confirmed so far:
- Three Dutch citizens
- Two Americans
- One Briton, David Dixon
- One Chinese national
Turkey has said it arrested and deported Brahim el-Bakraoui last June, warning Belgium he was a “foreign fighter” – but the message was “ignored”. The Dutch authorities had also been alerted, Ankara said.
The Belgian interior and justice ministers said they had offered to resign over this but added that the prime minister refused to let them.
Brahim el-Bakraoui is one of three men – pictured in the middle on a CCTV image of them – who carried out the bombings at Zaventem airport that killed 11 people. BBC
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