BRUSSELS — On what normally would be a bustling Monday, empty streets and an eerie silence attested to the reality that this capital city, the heart of the European Union, had been paralyzed by a terrorist cell answering to the leaders of the Islamic State.
As schools, shopping malls, museums, food markets, and the subway system closed, the city remained jittery after a number of false alarms involving hotels and even City Hall, which was closed Monday.
The central square, known as the Grand Place or Grote Markt, was all but deserted, except for a few tourists ambling around a giant Christmas tree. Soldiers patrolled an area normally thronged with shoppers, and armored personnel carriers rolled over cobblestone streets usually choked with cars.
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Prime Minister Charles Michel announced that Brussels would remain at the highest alert level for at least another week, citing a “serious and imminent threat.”
In France on Monday, a street cleaner found an explosive vest similar to those used in the Paris attacks near the place where a fugitive terrorism suspect’s cellphone was found, the Associated Press reported. Investigators raised the possibility that he aborted his mission, either ditching a malfunctioning vest or fleeing in fear.
Authorities said the device, which did not have a detonator, was found in a pile of rubble in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge. A police official said the vest contained bolts and the same type of explosive used in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that claimed 130 lives and left hundreds wounded.
It was found in the same area where a cellphone belonging to fugitive suspect Salah Abdeslam was pinpointed by GPS on the day of the Paris terrorist attacks, two police officials said. Police have been searching for Abdeslam, who was stopped by police after the attacks but let go and allowed to travel on to Belgium.
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Police search five homes in the Brussels area and two in the Liège region overnight. While the suspect remained at large, the police seized $27,600 and arrested five people, in addition to the 16 who were detained Sunday.
Later Monday, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office said a judge had placed in custody one of the 16 on charges of participating in the terrorist attack in Paris and had released the others. Two of the five arrested Monday morning have been released, the prosecutor said, while the judge will decide on the others Tuesday.
The lawyer for one of the 21 individuals arrested since Sunday said that they were friends and relatives of Abdeslam, and that police were looking to question them on their conversations with him before the Paris attacks.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said during a visit to Paris that he would seek parliamentary approval for the UK to join the airstrikes being carried out by the United States, France, Russia, and other nations against the Islamic State extremists in Syria.
France’s Defense Ministry said it had launched its first airstrikes in Iraq against the Islamic State, the AP reported. Jets from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle bombed Islamic State targets in Ramadi and Mosul on Monday in a seven-hour operation. France has already carried out strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.
The level of Belgian anxiety in the capital was so high that authorities felt compelled to remind people that they were free to leave their houses, even in Brussels, although they still were recommending that they “avoid unnecessary travel to busy places and comply with any potential security check.”
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“It’s a very strange atmosphere,” said Guy Egerickx, 60, a retiree, who had come out to shop. “It’s something that I’ve never experienced before.”
The subways and schools are scheduled to reopen Wednesday, Michel said in a news conference, but in other respects, “the situation remains the same as yesterday.” Of the investigation, he said only that the police “are working hard,” and he called on the public to “remain vigilant.”
For many people, it was one thing to be locked down on a weekend but quite another on a weekday when jobs and chores were supposed to be done.
“We feel as if we’re taken hostage by the security situation because we’ve had to change our habits, because everything’s closed,” said Deborah Mix, who manages a Bruyerre chocolate shop. “I can’t go do my shopping. I need to be careful when I leave the house. At the same time I feel like the security measures are adding to this climate of fear.”
The greatest fear for Charlie Attar, who runs a shop specializing in winter clothes, was not so much a terrorist attack as a lockdown that extends into the Christmas shopping season.
“Usually I get a lot of tourists from Switzerland, the Netherlands, from Scandinavian countries,” he said. “It’s going to be a catacomb. I need to pay rent. It’s going to get a lot more difficult.”
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He added: “We’re going to have to start getting used to the idea of living with the army.”
Michel Vankeerberghen, an official with the Tourism Bureau for Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium, said the city was “playing a waiting game,” one that tested the nerves. “On a psychological level, it’s very hard,” Vankeerberghen said.
The annual Brussels Christmas market was scheduled to open Friday, he said, but it was unclear whether the security lockdown would allow that to happen.