‘Second Paris’ averted by hours: Belgian police HQ under armed guard after two suspected ISIS jihadists are killed as commandos swoop on cell before imminent attack on local station

                    

Belgium's police HQ was last night under armed guard after anti-terror commandos shot dead two suspected Islamic State jihadis and arrested a third in an eastern town.

Shots and explosions were heard, including machine gun fire, as heavily armed, masked officers moved against the alleged cell in the eastern town of Verviers, which is some 70 miles from Brussels.

‘A second Paris has been avoided,’ an official from Belgium’s ministry of justice was quoted as saying, with reports claiming the jihadis had planned to launch attacks on police in the country.

It comes after an Islamic State video published yesterday showed French-speaking fighters telling Muslims in Europe: 'If you see a police officer in the street, kill him. Kill them all. Kill all the infidels you see on the street.'

After the smoke cleared forensic investigators were scouring a flat above a former bakery used as a safehouse by the terrorists, who were believed to have just last week returned from the civil war in Syria.

'You could smell the gunpowder,' said neighbour Alexandre Massaux following a minutes-long firefight with automatic weapons and Kalashnikovs that was punctuated by explosions.

Federal prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt confirmed that an active terror cell had been about to launch ‘attacks on a grand scale’.

He added: ‘The suspects immediately and for several minutes opened fire with military weaponry and handguns on the special units of the federal police before they were neutralised.’

The shooting took place near a railway station in the town of Verviers, near Belgium’s eastern border with Germany.

A resident told Belgian TV: ‘I heard two explosions and saw two young men run away. They were between 25 and 30 years, [and] of Arab origin.’

Police backed by the Belgian military were said to have carried out raids on a dozen homes across the country, including one in a flat above a bakery, which may have triggered the shooting. Machine guns are said to have been among the weapons seized.

Two suspected jihadis were killed in the battle. A third man, said to be seriously wounded, was last night in police custody, along with six other suspects. Officials last night said Belgium had raised the threat of terror attacks to its highest level.