Belgian police arrested 16 more people in late-night raids searching for those behind the deadly November 13 attacks in Paris, but failed to find a prime suspect.
Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old suspect from Brussels who has been on the run since he left Paris hours after his elder brother blew himself up at a cafe there, continues to elude a Europe-wide manhunt.
A third brother, who was not involved, said Abdeslam may have thought better of going through with the killing. Belgian police fear he returned home to launch new attacks.
"What we fear is an attack similar to the one in Paris, with several individuals who could possibly launch several attacks at the same time in multiple locations," Prime Minister Charles Michel said early on Sunday evening.
Shortly afterwards, armed police backed by armoured vehicles and helicopters stationed overhead began a series of raids in which 19 premises in Brussels and three in the industrial city of Charleroi, 50km to the south, were searched.
Prosecutor Eric van der Sypt told a news conference early on Monday that no weapons or explosives were found and that a judge would review the detentions of the 16 arrested.
In one incident, police fired on a car that was later found in Brussels, but it was not clear, van der Sypt said, if it was linked to the case.
"Abdeslam Salah was not found during the raids," he added.
Several Belgian media carried unsourced reports saying Abdeslam had been spotted in a car near Liege heading towards the German border. There have been numerous reported sightings in recent days, but Abdeslam, a petty criminal who ran a bar in Brussels' Molenbeek immigrant quarter, has eluded police.
Three people have so far been charged in Belgium, where French authorities say the Paris attacks were organised among Brussels' substantial network of Islamic State followers, some of whom have fought in Syria.
Two admit they drove Abdeslam back to Brussels from Paris but deny taking part in any violence.
Interior Minister Jan Jambon said Abdeslam was not the only security threat: "It is a threat that goes beyond just that one person," he told broadcaster VRT. "We're looking at more. That's why we've put in place such a concentration of resources."
Belgium has been at the heart of investigations into the Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed. Two of the suicide bombers, Brahim Abdeslam and Bilal Hadfi, lived in Brussels.
Mohamed Abdeslam, the brother of Brahim and Salah, urged Salah in an interview on RTBF television to give himself up, adding he believed he was still alive because he had had a last-minute change of heart while in Paris.
The lawyer of one of the men who picked him up said her client had noticed he was "extremely nervous" as they drove back to Brussels, being pulled over and let go three times by French police.
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