Authorities In European Country Arrest Multiple People In Alleged Plot To Ass*ssinate Prime Minister

Authorities in Belgium have arrested three young suspects in what prosecutors said was an alleged plot to target numerous politicians, including the prime minister.

The suspects were arrested in the city of Antwerp.

“Certain elements indicate that the suspects intended to carry out a jihadist-inspired terrorist attack against political figures,” prosecutor Ann Fransen said, according to The Guardian.

“There are also indications that the suspects aimed to construct a drone capable of carrying a payload,” she added.

BREAKING: Belgian federal authorities have arrested three young suspects in connection with what prosecutors said was an attempted terrorist attack on the country’s politicians, including Prime Minister Bart De Wever.

Full story: https://t.co/K4i4ih0nOd pic.twitter.com/MnoWbpFB7b

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) October 9, 2025

The Guardian shared further info:

The prosecutor’s office declined to name the intended targets, but several Flemish media outlets reported that they included the prime minister, Bart De Wever, who was previously the mayor of Antwerp.

“Prime minister Bart, all our support goes out to you and your family. Thank you to the security services,” the defence minister, Theo Francken, said on social media.

According to reports, police searched a residence just a few hundred metres from De Wever’s home in the city.

“During a search of one suspect’s home, an improvised device – potentially explosive but not yet operational – was found, along with a bag containing metal pellets,” Fransen said.

At the home of a second suspect, police discovered a 3D printer “believed to have been intended for manufacturing components useful in carrying out an attack”, she added.

The suspects were born in 2001, 2002 and 2007.

Two of them were being questioned by federal police and were due to appear before an investigating judge on Friday.

The third suspect was released.

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“I express my full support to the prime minister, his wife and his family, and my thanks go to the security and justice services, whose swift action has prevented the worst,” Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said (translated).

“It reminds us that the terrorist threat remains real and that we must remain vigilant. Belgium is actively strengthening its capacity to tackle new forms of terrorism, including by intensifying the fight against the malicious use of drones,” he added.

(NL/FR) Het nieuws over een geplande aanslag tegen eerste minister @Bart_DeWever is diep schokkend.

Ik betuig mijn volle steun aan de premier, zijn echtgenote en zijn gezin, en mijn dank gaat uit naar de veiligheids- en justitiediensten, van wie het snelle optreden het ergste…

— Maxime PREVOT (@prevotmaxime) October 9, 2025

POLITICO has more:

Investigators are examining evidence of plans to use a drone to deploy a device found during raids in the Antwerp district of Deurne, a mechanism that the prosecutor’s office said resembled an improvised explosive device. Investigators also found a bag of steel balls and seized a 3D printer from a second suspect, which was allegedly used to produce bomb components.

Fransen warned that the case highlights the ongoing risk of terrorism in Belgium. “This file shows that all security services must remain vigilant against the risk of terrorist attacks,” she said.

Belgian prosecutors have opened around 80 new terrorism cases so far this year — already more than the total number of cases in 2024. Thursday’s arrests come nearly a decade after the March 2016 Brussels terror attacks that killed 32 people.

“Terrorism has never disappeared. It remains an enemy of our democracy that we must continue to fight,” said Energy Minister Mathieu Bihet on X. Bihet is from the center-right Reformist Movement party, a francophone member of De Wever’s coalition government.

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This isn’t the first time De Wever has been targeted. In April the Antwerp Court of Appeal sentenced five men to prison, including a six-year term for the group’s leader, over a foiled 2023 plot to assassinate De Wever, the former mayor of Antwerp.