Terror Suspects Planned To Kill Cops In Street

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The suspects killed in a Belgian anti-terror raid were poised to kill several cops in the street - and had police uniforms at their hide-out.

AK-47s, knives, Kalashnikovs and explosives were found with uniforms and fake ID during raids on an apartment in eastern Belgium.

Two suspects were killed during a raid on the apartment in Verviers - one of 10 raids across the country.

The details emerged after hundreds of police across Europe raided properties targeting Islamist terrorists.

More than 25 people were held in Germany, France and Belgium amid fears of another terror attack, following the Paris atrocities.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Britons queued outside bookshops to buy the first Charlie Hebdo magazine since the Paris shootings.

Demand is high for the new issue, which carries a front-cover cartoon of a crying Prophet Mohammed.

Some queued from midnight, with around 1,000 copies available at UK stores, including the French Bookshop, in South Kensington, London.

In Belgium, Jewish schools were closed today and security forces surrounded the police HQ in Brussels.

At a press conference this morning, Belgian authorities said 13 people had been detained in Belgium and two in France following the raids.

Eric Van der Sypt, a Belgian federal magistrate, said the terrorists' goal was to kill police on the street or in their offices.

He said that some of the suspects had recently returned from Syria where they had been training and fighting with Islamic State.

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Gallery: Belgian Police Target Returning Jihadists

Forensic officers work in the rain on Rue de la Colline in Verviers, eastern Belgium

Belgian police shot dead two suspects in a huge operation against jihadists who had returned from Syria and planned an imminent attack

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The raids come just a few weeks after extremists killed more than a dozen people in Paris

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Belgium's federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt talks to the press in Brussels following the anti-terror raid

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Prosecutors say a third suspect was injured after heavily-armed militants with Kalashnikov assault rifles opened fire on police carrying out the raid

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In Germany, police said they had raided 11 properties linked to radical Islamists, shortly after the Belgian operation.

The German arrests, involving 250 police, followed months of investigation into five Turkish citizens, aged 31 to 44.

The Turkish citizens are suspected of "preparing a serious act of violence against the state in Syria" and money laundering, police said.

In France, 10 people were arrested overnight in anti-terrorism raids in the region.

The raids targeted individuals linked to Amedy Coulibaly, who attacked a kosher supermarket in Paris, leaving four hostages dead.

Prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre says the arrests began overnight and continued in three towns on Friday morning.

Police in Paris also confirmed that a city train station - the Gare de L'Est - had been evacuated and closed this morning over a bomb threat.

The Gare de l'Est is one of several major train stations in Paris, serving cities in eastern Paris and countries to the east.

Also in France, a series of funerals is taking place for the cartoonists killed in the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.

Among them is that of the magazine's editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier, who will be buried in Pontoise, north-west of Paris.

In a separate development, several French national media websites have gone down following a series of hacking incidents.

Elsewhere, police in Pakistan used a water cannon to disperse anti-Charlie Hebdo protesters at the French consulate in Karachi.

A photographer working for the French news agency AFP was wounded in the disturbances.

The protesters belong to the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami religious party.

The party is holding nationwide rallies against the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed by the French satirical weekly.

Amid the worldwide tensions, US Secretary of State John Kerry met President Francois Hollande, to offer support.

Mr Hollande told him: "You've been victims yourself of an exceptional terrorist attack on September 11.

"You know what it means for a country. ... We must find together appropriate responses."

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