🔗 Share this article Reported Plot to Target Belgian Premier Thwarted Belgium's authorities have arrested three suspects accused of planning an assault on the country's premier, Bart de Wever. Prosecutors characterized the reported plot as a extremist assault with jihadist roots targeting the prime minister and fellow elected representatives. During investigations conducted in Antwerp's Deurne district, close to the prime minister's home, authorities discovered a alleged IED and proof that the suspects were planning to deploy a UAV. While the planned victims of the strike were not officially named by the prosecutor's office, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot stated that the prime minister was one of them. "The news of a premeditated attack targeting PM Bart de Wever is deeply alarming," Prevot stated in a update on X on the day of the arrests. "It highlights that we are confronting a very real extremist danger and that we have to stay alert," he continued. The three suspects detained on allegations of attempted terrorist murder and engagement in the functions of a terrorist group all live in Antwerp, per the federal prosecutors. They were with years of birth in the early 2000s. On the evening of the arrests, one person was let go, while the remaining two were still being questioned and likely to face a judge on the following day. Legal authorities said that the accused were detained after a judge authorized raids of their residences in the location by police officers assisted by explosives-trained dogs. It was during these searches that they found a item which closely resembled a homemade bomb, lead prosecutor Ann Fransen said at a news conference on Thursday. Searches also found a "bag of steel balls" and a 3D printer, with signs of drone weaponization plans, she continued. Fransen stated that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases opened in Belgium so far this year - more than the total number of cases in the previous year. Earlier this year, five people were found guilty for a previous year's plan to strike Belgium's leader while he was acting as the city's chief executive.