Belgium makes three arrests linked to Paris attacks

Police in Belgium made three arrests Saturday in connection with Friday's bloody terror assaults in Paris that killed at least 129 people, officials said.

Belgium Justice Minister Koen Geens told the VRT network that the arrests came after a car with Belgian license plates was seen Friday night close to the Bataclan concert hall, scene of the deadliest assault where at least 89 people were massacred by attackers armed with AK-47s and explosives.

Geens said the car was a rental and the arrests stemmed from police raids conducted in the St. Jans Molenbeek neighborhood in Brussels.

Earlier Saturday, French media reported that a suspicious black car with Belgian places was seen near the Bataclan, Sky News reported.

Late Saturday, the area around the Eiffel Tower was evacuated, the Champ de Marspark underground station was closed and there was heavy police activity for a time around the Pullman Hotel, as French authorities continued to hunt the Islamic militants responsible for Friday's deadly attacks. The scenes were eventually cleared.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told a news conference Saturday evening in Paris that the seven gunmen involved in the attacks all wore suicide vests containing the explosive TATP, a chemical used in other major terrorist attacks such as the London bombings of 2005, Molins said, according to the Wall Street Journal. All the attackers either killed themselves by detonating their vests, or were shot by police, Molins said, according to the paper.

“We can say at this stage of the investigation there was probably three coordinated teams of terrorists behind this barbaric act," the prosecutor said, according to Reuters.

The swift arrests in Belgium came as France’s president Francois Hollande vowed to punish ISIS for the attacks and French anti-terror police hunted Saturday for potential accomplices to the attackers.

The terrorists teams carried out their coordinated attacks Friday night at six sites around the capital, authorities said.

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