Belgian police arrest 16 in raids, Paris attacks suspect Abdeslam not found

Sixteen people were arrested in police raids on Sunday in the Brussels region and the southern Belgian city of Charleroi, Belgian federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Sijpt said early Monday.

No arms or explosives were found, he said, adding that the suspect of the Paris terror attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was not arrested during the raids.

Abdeslam is known to have entered Belgium on Nov. 14. His brother, Mohamed Abdeslam, made an appearance on Belgian TV and urged him to surrender.

Aside from confirming that Abdeslam was still at large, the prosecutor did not give further information about the objects found during the raids nor about the identity of the persons arrested.

Nineteen raids were carried out in the Brussels districts of Molenbeek, Jette, Anderlecht, Schaerbeek, Forest and Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. Three other raids were made in Charleroi, according to Van Der Sijpt.

Police opened fire on a vehicle in Molenbeek, which fled the scene but was later intercepted in Brussels. One suspect in the car was injured and arrested, he added.

The Brussels region will maintain the highest level of alert on Monday.The terror threat level in the Brussels region was increased to "maximum" on Saturday because authorities received information on the risk of an attack "similar to Paris."

Meanwhile, authorities have dialed the alert level down a notch for the rest of Belgium following a new assessment by OCAM, the Belgian Coordinating Body for Threat Analysis.

Sources: XINHUA