🔗 Share this article Suspected Plan to Attack Belgian Premier Thwarted Belgian authorities have taken into custody three individuals allegedly involved in conspiring to carry out an strike on the country's prime minister, Bart de Wever. Prosecutors described the alleged plan as a terrorist act motivated by jihadist ideology targeting the premier and other elected representatives. During investigations conducted in the Deurne area of Antwerp, near the prime minister's personal dwelling, investigators uncovered a alleged IED and evidence that the suspects were planning to employ a unmanned aerial vehicle. While the prospective targets of the assault were not officially named by the prosecutor's office, Second-in-command Maxime Prevot revealed that the prime minister was one of them. "Reports of a intended assault directed toward PM Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," Prevot wrote in a post on social media on Thursday. "It highlights that we are facing a genuine terrorism risk and that we have to stay alert," he added. The three people detained on suspicion of terrorism-related attempted murder and engagement in the activities of a extremist organization all reside in the Antwerp region, as stated by the federal prosecutors. They were born in three different years between 2001 and 2007. By the evening of the arrests, one suspect was released, while the remaining two were undergoing questioning and scheduled to appear in court on Friday. The prosecution said that the accused were arrested after a magistrate authorized raids of their homes in the city by officials backed by explosives-trained dogs. In the course of these investigations that they found a object which closely resembled a homemade bomb, legal representative Ann Fransen announced at a press conference on the day of the events. Raids also uncovered a collection of ball bearings and a three-dimensional printer, with signs of drone weaponization plans, she continued. Fransen stated that there had been 80 terrorism investigations launched in the nation this year - surpassing the overall count of instances in the previous year. In April, five individuals were convicted for a previous year's plan to attack De Wever while he was acting as the city's chief executive.