PARIS – Belgian federal prosecutors confirmed Saturday that a third suspect in Belgium has been charged in connection with plotting what officials are calling a major terrorist attack on France.
The arrest comes as part of the same investigation that led to the arrest of Reda Kriket, 34, in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil last week, and another suspect in the Netherlands.
The third suspect in Belgium, identified only as Y.A., was taken into custody on Friday. Prosecutors said that Y. A. is a Belgian citizen born May 4, 1982, making the suspect 33, but declined to provide further information “in the interest of the investigation.”
After the March 22 attacks on the Brussels airport and the city’s metro line, Belgium remains on the highest level of alert. On Saturday, however, officials announced that a limited number of passenger flights would resume from Brussels Airport on Sunday. Security at the airport, as it has elsewhere in Brussels, will be tighter.
Since Kriket’s arrest in the Paris suburbs on March 24, two others have been arrested in Belgium for colluding with him: a man authorities have identified only as Rabah M., 34, and Abderahmane Ameroud, 38. Both were arrested in Brussels March 25, and both are Algerian citizens.
Additionally, Dutch authorities, at the insistence of their French counterparts, arrested a French citizen, Anis Bahri, 32, in Rotterdam on March 27. Authorities say Bahri was involved in plotting the France attack.
In the apartment Kriket occupied in Argenteuil, police discovered assault rifles, handguns, and explosives – including TATP, the type of explosive that has become a trademark of Islamic State jihadists. The substance was used in both the November attacks on Paris and in the Brussels attacks.
At the time of Kriket’s arrest, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the apprehended suspect was in the “advanced stages” of planning an attack in conjunction with “a terrorist network.”
Although the extent of that network remains unclear, Kriket was sentenced in Belgium in absentia in July 2015 to 10 years in prison, for being part of a jihadist channel stemming from Syria. Also sentenced was Abaaoud Abdelhamid, a principal organizer behind the November attacks on Paris.
