2nd LD Writethru: One person arrested in Brussels raid: local mayor

One person was arrested and several controlled detonations were carried out during a major police operation in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek on Friday afternoon, local media reported.

Place Meiser, a busy road junction feeding traffic into the city center, was closed off with a large number of police and military personnel on the scene, Belgian broadcaster RTBF reported.

According to La Libre Belgique newspaper, the raid was connected to a thwarted terror plot in Paris on Thursday.

Officers raided one property in the neighborhood and one person was caught. RTBF claims that the suspect was in possession of a suitcase or bag containing explosives.

The mayor of Schaerbeek, Bernard Clerfayt, told Le Soir that the police operation was now over and confirmed that one person, who is injured, was arrested, and two controlled explosions were carried out as a preventative measure.

According to earlier reports, an arrest was made Friday morning in the Brussels district of Forest during police probe into Tuesday's terror attacks in the Belgian capital.

Belgium's federal prosecutor has yet to give details of the arrest in the morning, which if confirmed, would be the seventh made by the police since Tuesday's attacks, which killed at least 31 people and injured more than 300 others.

On Thursday evening, six people were arrested in police raids. Among them, two people were arrested in central Brussels, one in the nearby suburb of Jette and three others near the federal prosecutor's office, local broadcaster RTBF reported.

Another police raid was launched in the district of Schaerbeek on Thursday evening but no arrests were made, according to Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir. Endit