🔗 Share this article Suspected Plot to Attack Belgian Premier Prevented Belgium's police have arrested three suspects allegedly involved in conspiring to carry out an strike on the nation's PM, Bart de Wever. Federal prosecutors characterized the reported scheme as a "jihadist-inspired terrorist attack" targeting the prime minister and other elected representatives. During searches conducted in the Deurne area of Antwerp, in proximity to the premier's personal dwelling, investigators uncovered a alleged homemade bomb and proof that the individuals were intending to use a drone. While the prospective targets of the attack were not disclosed by name by the federal prosecutors, Vice Premier Maxime Prevot revealed that Belgium's leader was among them. "Information of a planned strike directed toward Prime Minister Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," Prevot stated in a post on social media on the day of the arrests. "It highlights that we are confronting a genuine terrorism risk and that we have to stay alert," he concluded. The three individuals detained on charges of terrorism-related attempted murder and involvement in the activities of a terrorist group all live in Antwerp, per the legal authorities. They were with years of birth in the early 2000s. On Thursday evening, one of the individuals was let go, while two others were under interrogation and scheduled to face a judge on the next day. Legal authorities revealed that the suspects were taken into custody after a judge directed inspections of their residences in the city by officials backed by explosive sniffer dogs. In the course of these raids that they found a device which "bore strong resemblances to an improvised explosive device", federal prosecutor Ann Fransen said at a press conference on that day. Raids also revealed a container of metal spheres and a three-dimensional printer, with evidence suggesting drone-based payload delivery, she noted. The prosecutor stated that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases launched in the country so far this year - exceeding the full amount of investigations in 2024. Earlier this year, five individuals were convicted for a previous year's plan to attack the prime minister while he was holding the position of the city's chief executive.