Belgium Considers Raising Threat Level Following Tuesday's Gunfight

Belgium's anti-terrorism organization will elaborate new policy amid current increasing terrorist threat level.

BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — Belgium's anti-terrorism organization is set to present its evaluation on increasing the country's terrorist threat level later on Wednesday, Interior Minister Jan Jambon said.

On Tuesday, fire was exchanged between terrorist suspects and Belgian special forces at a private house in the Brussels municipality of Forest, following which the latter stormed the building. Four police officers were wounded during the firefight when one of the terrorists opened fire from a Kalashnikov assault rifle. The assailant was neutralized, while two other escaped and were arrested on Wednesday.

Belgium's Coordination Unit for Threat Assessment (OCAD) security experts will present their assessments of the terrorist threat in the country later on Wednesday in an emergency meeting called by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, according to Jambon.

The Belgian authorities will then decide on raising the country's alert level, he said.

On March 4, Belgian authorities decided to keep the terrorist threat level at its current "serious" setting of three on the four-tier scale. The OCAD issued a report stating that the security situation had not changed significantly as there were neither arrests of suspected terrorists nor progress in the investigation into the possible terror activities.

Brussels had previously raised the terror alert to the fourth level for several days amid a manhunt for the perpetrators of the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 and injured some 350 people. Many of the perpetrators were Belgian citizens of North African origin.