AFP, BRUSSELS: Belgian police found an Islamic State (IS) flag next to the body of an Algerian killed during a raid in Brussels, investigators said Wednesday as they raced to track down two suspected extremists who escaped.
In Paris, meanwhile, French police said they had arrested four suspected Islamists, one of whom was believed to be plotting attacks, and President Francois Hollande urged the public to be vigilant. Belgian investigators named the fatality in the Brussels operation as Mohamed Belkaid, 35, an Algerian national living illegally in Belgium, who was killed by a police sniper while trying to fire at police during a chaotic gunbattle on Tuesday. Two suspects were still at large after the bloodshed, which erupted as Belgian and French police searched a property in connection with the November 13 Paris massacres, claimed by IS, in which 130 people died.