🔗 Share this article Alleged Plan to Target Belgian Premier Prevented Belgian authorities have taken into custody three suspects allegedly involved in plotting an attack on the nation's PM, Bart de Wever. Prosecutors labeled the reported scheme as a terrorist act motivated by jihadist ideology targeting the prime minister and fellow politicians. During investigations conducted in the Deurne area of Antwerp, close to the premier's personal dwelling, officials discovered a suspected improvised explosive device and evidence that the accused were intending to use a unmanned aerial vehicle. While the intended targets of the attack were not disclosed by name by the federal prosecutors, Vice Premier Maxime Prevot revealed that de Wever was included in the targets. "Reports of a intended assault aimed at Prime Minister Bart de Wever is profoundly disturbing," the official stated in a update on online platforms on Thursday. "It emphasizes that we are confronting a genuine terrorist threat and that we have to keep watchful," he concluded. The three people arrested on suspicion of plotting a terrorist killing and engagement in the activities of a terrorist group all reside in the Antwerp region, per the prosecutor's office. They were born in three different years between 2001 and 2007. As of Thursday evening, one of the individuals was let go, while two others were under interrogation and scheduled to face a judge on the next day. Federal prosecutors said that the individuals were arrested after a court official ordered raids of their homes in the city by law enforcement backed by explosive sniffer dogs. Throughout these investigations that they discovered a object which appeared to be an IED, legal representative Ann Fransen said at a media briefing on the day of the events. Searches also uncovered a "bag of steel balls" and a additive manufacturing device, with "indications that they intended to use a drone to attach a payload", she added. The official disclosed that there had been eighty counter-terrorism cases initiated in the country in the current year - more than the overall count of cases in the previous year. In April, five suspects were found guilty for a scheme last year to target the prime minister while he was acting as the city's chief executive.