Benoit Tessier | Reuters
Belgian soldiers patrol in central Brussels as police search the area during a continued high level of security following the recent deadly Paris attacks, Belgium, November 24, 2015.
Fire crews and decontamination teams attended a major mosque in Brussels close to the European Union headquarters on Thursday after a suspect powder was found that the fire service said was feared to be anthrax.
Reuters journalists saw about a dozen emergency vehicles, including police, outside the Islamic and Cultural Centre of Belgium, a large Saudi-established institution including a mosque situated 200 metres from the European Commission.
A spokeswoman for the fire service said it had taken a call from the mosque from a person saying they believed that they had found anthrax powder, prompting the deployment of specialist crews. There was no immediate word on what the substance was.
Since the Paris attacks on Nov. 13 by French and Belgian Islamic State militants, there have been reports of threats against mosques used by Belgium's half million Muslims, among them some from an unknown group calling itself Christian State.
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Earlier Thursday Velgian federal police mounted a raid on in a small town south of Brussels linked to fears of a militant attack, public broadcaster RTBF said, adding that officers were looking for weapons and explosives.
RTBF said the information came from federal prosecutors.
A local police official in Sambreville told Reuters by telephone that an operation had been concluded but declined to say what the aim of it had been. A local government official referred all inquiries to the federal prosecutor in Brussels who is handling inquiries into the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris.
Federal police and prosecutors had no immediate comment.
The raid was in Auvelais, part of the commune of Sambreville, the Belgian media reports said.
Patrick Abboud
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