Two jihadist suspects killed in Belgium police shootout

Two suspected terrorists were killed in a police shootout in Belgium last night, averting what one police source claims would have been a "Belgian Charlie Hebdo" incident.

Police raided a series of properties across the country after receiving intelligence that a jihadist network was about to launch attacks "on a big scale".

At one flat in Verviers, near Liège, officers were greeted with a hail of bullets and fired back at their attackers. Two suspects were killed and one was injured and placed under arrest.

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Police uniforms were discovered in the flat, along with four Kalashnikovs and bomb-making equipment, prompting speculation that the suspects were planning to disguise themselves as police to stage an attack.

One police source told The Times: "We have avoided a Belgian Charlie Hebdo."

However, the target was believed to have been the police service rather than journalists.

Officials said the three men planned imminent attacks, although no direct link was made with the three Paris attackers.

Police raids were carried out in Brussels, Vilvorde, Schaerbeek, Zaventem and Molenbeek-Saint-Jean following a surveillance operation on a number of individuals who had returned from Syria.

A spokesman for the prosecution service said: "The investigation was on an operational cell notably composed of individuals who had come back from Syria and who were planning terrorist attacks on a big scale against the police service imminently."

The national security threat in Belgium has been raised to three, the second highest, meaning that an attack is probable.

In Paris, ten suspects were questioned overnight about any "possible logistical support", such as guns or weapons, that they could have given the three gunmen in last week's attacks.

A man accused of selling firearms to Amedy Coulibaly, killed after attacking a kosher supermarket last Friday, gave himself up to Belgian authorities this week.