Suicide vest found in trash on Paris street

Brussels in lockdown mode

Belgian police officers patrol the Grand Place on Monday in downtown Brussels. The Belgian capital has entered its third day of lockdown, with schools and underground transport closed and more than 1,000 security personnel deployed across the country.
Belgian police officers patrol the Grand Place on Monday in downtown Brussels. The Belgian capital has entered its third day of lockdown, with schools and underground transport closed and more than 1,000 security personnel deployed across the country.

PARIS -- A street cleaner on Monday found an explosive vest similar to those used in the Paris attacks near the place where a fugitive suspect's cellphone was found, raising the possibility that he aborted his mission, either ditching a malfunctioning vest or fleeing in fear.

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AP

A man smokes and looks at his smartphone Monday under a heating lamp in what would normally be a busy tourist area of central Brussels.

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AP

Belgian soldiers patrol Monday in the center of Brussels. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel announced Brussels would remain at the highest alert level for at least another week.

Meanwhile, the search for the suspect kept the Belgian capital in an unprecedented lockdown that brought normal business to a standstill as European leaders vowed to tackle the unfolding crisis at its roots in Syria.

Also Monday, Belgian authorities charged an additional suspect in connection with the Paris attacks.

In Paris, authorities said the device, which did not have a detonator, was found in a pile of rubble in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge. A police official said the vest contained bolts and the same type of explosive used in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that claimed 130 lives and left hundreds wounded.

It was found in the same area where a cellphone belonging to fugitive suspect Salah Abdeslam was pinpointed by GPS on the day of the Paris attacks, two police officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Police have been conducting a manhunt for Abdeslam, who was stopped by police after the attacks but let go and allowed to travel on to Belgium.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, meanwhile, announced that Brussels would remain at the highest alert level for at least another week, maintaining security measures that have severely disrupted normal life in the Belgian capital since the weekend.

Michel cited a "serious and imminent" threat to the city, which houses the headquarters of the European Union and NATO, and said the rest of the country would stay at the second-highest level. Belgium's crisis center said the alert level would only change if a significant breakthrough warranted it.

"What we expect is an attack similar to the one that unfolded in Paris with multiple people who launch offensives in many places at the same time," Michel said late Sunday. The threat is "very serious and imminent."

The increased security measures in the wake of the massacre in Paris have virtually shut down the Belgian capital, with the subway system, many shops and schools remaining shut Monday. Michel said that despite the continued high-alert level, schools would reopen Wednesday, with parts of the subway system beginning to operate the same day. He did not say when the system would be completely online again.

"Closing the metro isn't so much about a threat but with the difficulty of ensuring security," Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon told Een television. "Each metro station has about eight exits. That is much more difficult than a train that passes through several stations."

"We are very alert and call for caution," Michel said. "The potential targets remain the same: shopping centers and shopping streets and public transport."

"We want to return to a normal way of life as quickly as possible," he added.

The unprecedented security measures come as authorities hunt for one or more suspected extremists, including Abdeslam.

The suspect arrested and charged Monday, whose name was not released, was one of 21 people detained in 29 raids in the capital and in the southern cities of Liege and Charleroi, a sweep that ended Monday morning. At least 17 of the detainees were released. The suspect was charged with "participating in activities of a terrorist group and a terrorist attack (Paris)," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.

While three others were still being questioned Monday night, prosecutors said they had not located Abdeslam, 26, a French national born in Belgium.

"We didn't find arms or explosives," federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said. "A certain number of elements of the investigation required intervention tonight."

Cameron visits Paris

Earlier Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said during a visit to Paris that he would seek parliamentary approval for the U.K. to join the airstrikes being carried out by the U.S., France, Russia and other nations against the Islamic State extremists in Syria.

Cameron and French President Francois Hollande paid a visit to the Bataclan concert hall, which saw the worst of the carnage. Seeking a unified strategy on Syria, Hollande meets today with President Barack Obama and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday, before traveling to Moscow on Thursday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

France's Defense Ministry said it had launched its first airstrikes from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, bombing Islamic State targets in the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Mosul in a seven-hour operation. The ministry said four Rafale fighter jets were sent from the carrier Monday afternoon. France has already carried out strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.

Britain has been carrying out airstrikes in Iraq, and Cameron has long wanted an expanded mandate to extend the air campaign to Syria. But until now, his government has been reluctant to suggest a parliamentary vote until it could be certain of winning it.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said today that there is no support among world leaders for the prospect of a U.S.-led army in Iraq and Syria to take back ground from Islamic State militants.

Turnbull said in a speech to Parliament on national security that his government did not intend to change Australia's military commitment to Iraq and Syria in response to the Paris attacks as well as the recent attacks in Africa and Lebanon.

Turnbull said his recent discussions with world leaders at the G-20, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and East Asia Summit forum found "there is no support currently for a large, U.S.-led Western army to attempt to conquer and hold [Islamic State]-controlled areas."

Greece: 2 were rescued

Several of the Paris attackers had lived in Brussels, including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the man who authorities say orchestrated the plot. He was killed Wednesday in a standoff with French police.

French authorities issued a new appeal for help in identifying one of the three attackers who was killed in the assault near the national stadium. They posted a photo of the man on Twitter on Sunday asking the public for information.

Greek police confirmed the man posed as an asylum seeker before the attack. Public Order Minister Nikos Toskas said the man traveled to the island of Leros on Oct. 3, but he gave no further details.

Two senior Greek law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that the man traveled with another attacker, identified as Ahmad Al Mohammad. Both men were rescued by the Greek coast guard while traveling from Turkey on a boat carrying nearly 200 migrants and refugees that sank before reaching Greece. The officials requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media.

Last week, France extended for three months a state of emergency that allows police raids, searches and house arrest without permission from a judge. On Saturday, it also extended a ban on demonstrations and other gatherings through the end of the month, when a U.N. climate conference to be attended by more than 100 heads of state is scheduled to start.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, as well as two other attacks over the past month: suicide bombings in Beirut that killed 43 people and the downing of a Russian jetliner carrying 224 people in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Putin, Iranians talk

Also Monday, Putin visited Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders that focused on the Syrian crisis and an international peace plan intended to end the conflict.

During his meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, both Putin and the top cleric warned against any effort to impose a political settlement on Syria.

"No one from the outside can and should enforce models of government on the Syrian people and determine who should be in charge," Putin said. "Only the Syrian people should decide that."

Putin underlined that stance after a later meeting with President Hassan Rouhani. "There is no other way to reach a long-term settlement of the Syrian problem except through political talks," he said.

Khamenei accused the United States and its allies of trying "to achieve through diplomacy and at the negotiating table the goals they could not achieve by military means in Syria."

"This must be prevented through wisdom and active interaction," Khamenei told Putin at the start of their meeting that lasted more than an hour and a half.

Putin, on a one-day visit to attend a gas exporting nations' summit, praised Iran for its support of Russia's operation in Syria, which since Sept. 30 has included airstrikes against the Islamic State and other insurgent groups.

"While some countries only imitate action in the fight against terrorism, our two countries have shown how to deal with the issue in a serious way," Rouhani said.

"The Syrian crisis must and will be decided by political means," Putin said during a meeting with his Turkmen counterpart, President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, on the sidelines of the gas summit.

The Turkmen leader voiced uneasiness about Russia using the Caspian Sea for some of the strikes on Syria, but Putin said using the Caspian would continue "for as long as we see necessary to punish the culprits" behind the plane attack.

Information for this article was contributed by Raf Casert, Elaine Ganley, Lori Hinnant, Frank Jordans, Sylvie Corbet, Nicolas Vaux-Montagny, Elena Becatoros, Lorne Cook, John-Thor Dahlburg, Maria Cheng, Danica Kirka, Costas Kantouris, Derek Gatopoulos, Vladimir Isachenkov, Ali Akbar Dareini and Rod McGuirk of The Associated Press; by Loveday Morris and Missy Ryan of The Washington Post; and by Ian Wishart, Anchalee Worrachate, Robert Hutton, Aoife White, Andrew Clapham and Julia Verlaine of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 11/24/2015

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