Breaking News & Vocabulary
Belgium faces tighter security measures as New Year’s approaches. Difficult words are highlighted and explained to help you with the text.
Belgian police have arrested (=took to the police station for questioning) two people suspected of planning attacks in Brussels on New Year’s Eve.
Raids took place on Sunday and Monday in Brussels and the provinces of Flemish Brabant and Liege. Police seized (=took) military clothing and computer equipment in the raids, but no weapons (= guns, knives, bombs) or explosives (- bombs). Belgium has been on high alert (= in a state of emergency, watching out for danger) since the attacks of 13 November in Paris. Several of the perpetrators (=criminals) are thought to have been based (= the police thought they lived) in Belgium.
However, the latest arrests are not linked to the Paris attacks, prosecutors (= police, investigator, official who charges someone with a crime) say. One of those arrested is suspected of leading and recruiting (=hiring people) for a terrorist cell. The suspects are accused of planning attacks against several “symbolic targets” in Brussels, as well as on the police, according to the Belgian broadcaster RTBF.
In November Brussels was placed under a four-day lockdown (= when people cannot go to places) closing universities, schools and the metro system, amid fears of a Paris-style attack. The presumed (= who officials think was) ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was a Belgian national who had travelled to fight in Syria.
Source: BBC.com Read the full story
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