Terror Suspects Planned To Kill Police In Street

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Two suspects killed in a Belgian anti-terror raid were poised to murder several police officers in the street - and had police uniforms at their hideout, authorities say.

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

The 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.

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Gallery: French Special Forces Detain Suspect In Post Office Hostage Situation

Armed police surround the post office in Colombes outside Paris after a man holds a number of people hostage.

It was initially unclear whether the situation was linked to terrorism.

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Later reports suggested that the man was known to police and had called officers himself to alert them.

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The suspect was eventually detained by members of special French RAID forces.

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Police say the hostages were freed unharmed but were in shock.

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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 for the day and security forces surrounded the police HQ in Brussels.

At a news conference on Friday 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.

In Germany, police 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 between 31 and 44.

They are suspected of "preparing a serious act of violence against the state in Syria" and money laundering.

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

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 major city railway station - the Gare de L'Est - had been evacuated and closed in the morning because of a bomb threat.

There were also fears that a new siege at a post office in Colombes, outside Paris, today, may be linked to terror.

But the armed suspect was arrested quickly and all hostages freed. Sources indicate that the situation was not linked to terrorism.

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

One was for the magazine's editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier, in Pontoise, north-west of Paris.

In a separate development, several French national media websites went 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.

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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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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, which 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 in Paris to offer support.

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