Paris attacks: French authorities make 10 arrests, net also cast to Belgium

The Paris prosecutor's office says 10 people have been arrested in anti-terrorism raids in the region, targeting people linked to a gunman who attacked a kosher supermarket and claimed ties to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre says the arrests began overnight and continued in three towns Friday morning.

Authorities are on high alert in France and neighbouring Belgium, where authorities moved swiftly Thursday night to preempt what they called a major impending attack.

The prosecutor's office says Friday's raids around Paris are linked to Amedy Coulibaly, one of three gunmen involved in France's worst terrorist attacks in decades.

• EXCLUSIVE I Paris hostage recalls thinking, 'we're all going to die'
• In Charlie Hebdo aftermath, 19,000 French websites attacked by hackers

In Paris, police say the Gare de l'Est train station has been closed early Friday and evacuated after a bomb threat, as authorities try to prevent new violence after the worst terrorist attacks in decades.

A police official says the station was closed "as a precaution." The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named, would not give further details.

Europe on high alert

Authorities in France and several countries are looking for possible accomplices to the Paris attacks, or those with links to militant Islamist groups.

Hundreds of Berlin police raided 11 residences at dawn Friday, taking two Turkish men into custody on suspicion they were recruiting fighters and procuring equipment and funding for ISIS in Syria.
 
Martin Steltner, a spokesman for Berlin prosecutors, told The Associated Press the raids involving 250 police officers were part of a months-long investigation into a small group of Turkish extremists based in Berlin.

In Belgium, police continued with searches in Verviers and the greater Brussels area, seeking more clues in a weeks-long investigation that started well before the terrorism spree last week that led to 17 deaths in the Paris area. The Belgian operations had no apparent link to the terrorist acts committed in France.

And, unlike the Paris terrorists, who attacked the office of a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery store, the suspects in Belgium were reportedly aiming at hard targets: police installations.

"They were on the verge of committing important terror attacks," Van der Sypt told a news conference in Brussels.

Authorities in Belgium signalled they were ready for more trouble by raising the national terror alert level from 2 to 3, the second-highest level.

"It shows we have to be extremely careful," Van der Sypt said. The Verviers suspects "were extremely well-armed men" equipped with automatic weapons, he said. Some of the individuals "were in Syria and had come back," he added.

Earlier Thursday, Belgian authorities said they were looking into possible links between a man they arrested in the southern city of Charleroi for illegal trade in weapons and Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four people in a Paris kosher market last week.

The man arrested in Belgium "claims that he wanted to buy a car from the wife of Coulibaly," Van der Sypt said. "At this moment this is the only link between what happened in Paris."

In Spain, authorities said Coulibaly drove his common-law wife from France to Madrid on Dec. 31 and was with her until she took a Jan. 2 flight to Istanbul.

Spain's National Court said it was investigating what Coulibaly did in the country's capital with his wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, and a third person who wasn't identified but is suspected of helping Boumeddiene get from Turkey to Syria.

'Our hearts are with you': John Kerry

The Gare de l'Est is one of several major train stations in Paris, serving cities in eastern Paris and countries to the east.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, is in the city meeting top officials in France to express America's solidarity with the French people after last week's deadly terrorist attacks.

"I think you know that you have the full and heartfelt condolences of the American people and I know you know that we share the pain and the horror of everything that you went through," Kerry said as he greeted French President Francois Hollande Friday. "Our hearts are with you."

Kerry was seeing Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius Friday morning before laying wreaths at the sites of the two attacks. Kerry will then join the mayor of the city at an event that is to include a short performance by musician James Taylor.

Kerry's visit comes amid lingering criticism of the Obama administration's failure to send a cabinet-level official to Paris for last Sunday's unity march that attracted some 40 world leaders and more than a million demonstrators.