Belgians stop al Qaeda jail break

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Police in Belgium arrested 14 Muslim extremists on Friday after uncovering a plot to free an al Qaeda suspect from prison using weapons and explosives.

Security across the small European state was stepped up in the wake of the alleged conspiracy, a spokeswoman for Belgium's federal prosecutors told a news conference.

Lieve Pellens said the conspirators planned to liberate Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian terrorist suspect who has been in custody since his arrest two days after the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001.

Trabelsi, a former professional soccer player in Germany, was jailed for 10 years in 2003 for planning to blow up a NATO military base in Belgium that housed American soldiers.

The 37-year-old admitted planning to drive a car bomb into the canteen at Kleine Brogel, an air base where about 100 American military personnel are stationed.

Trabelsi, who testified to a Belgium court that he intended kill American soldiers, claimed to have met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan after joining anal Qaeda group.

Pellens said most of the arrests were in the capital Brussels.

In the wake of the arrests, she said extra police were being deployed on transport networks, at railway stations and airports and commercial centers to guard against a terrorist attack over the busy holiday period.

"Since it is not excluded that this group developed other projects and because the state of emergency in this period of the year is higher, the federal prosecutor and the examining magistrate decided to take no risks and intervene in the biggest possible way," Pellens told the news conference that was broadcast on Belgium television.

On its Web site, the U.S. Embassy in Brussels issued an alert to American citizens in Belgium to maintain a high level of vigilance, especially in crowded public places.

However, it said it had "no information to indicate that U.S. citizens or facilities are an intended target." E-mail to a friend

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