Belgium: Authorities make arrests tied to Paris attacks

Belgium's justice minister says authorities have made several arrests linked to the deadly attacks in Paris.

Minister Koen Geens told the VRT network that the arrests came after a car with Belgian license plates was seen close to the Bataclan theater in Paris on Friday night, one of the places where victims were killed.

He said it was a rental vehicle and police organized several raids in the St. Jans Molenbeek neighborhood in Brussels on Saturday.

Geens said "there were arrests relating to the search of the vehicle and person who rented it." He said the number of arrests was "more than one."

Irish Times Reporter Suzanne Lynch told CBSN that St. Jans Molenbeek has been targeted by police in the past.

Lynch said that residents expressed a "quiet shock" in reaction to Saturday's arrests.

At least 127 people died Friday night when attackers launched gun attacks at Paris cafes, detonated suicide bombs near France's national stadium and killed hostages inside a concert hall during a rock show. More than 200 people were injured, dozens critically.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility in Arabic and French in an online statement circulated by ISIS supporters. The statement mocked France's involvement in air attacks on suspected ISIS bases in Syria and Iraq, noting that France's air power was "of no use to them in the streets and rotten alleys of Paris."

Authorities said seven attackers died, most in suicide bombings, a new terror tactic in France. Police said they shot and killed one assailant.

Officials said a suicide bomber at the concert hall was identified as a young Frenchman flagged in the past for links with an Islamic extremist activity, and a Syrian passport was recovered from the remains of another suicide bomber outside the stadium.

Officials in Greece said the attacker with the Syrian passport had entered in October through Leros, one of the islands that tens of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in Syria and elsewhere have been using as a gateway to the the European Union in recent months.

French anti-terror police worked to identify potential accomplices to the attackers, and prosecutor's office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said authorities couldn't rule out the possibility that other militants involved in the attack remained at large.