Brussels mosque powder scare turns out to be false alarm

Police confirmed the suspected powder at the mosque was not anthrax, but flour

BRUSSELS: Fire crews and decontamination teams attended a major mosque in Brussels close to the European Union headquarters on Thursday to investigate a suspect powder that police later said turned out to be flour.



Reuters journalists saw about a dozen emergency vehicles, including police, outside the Islamic and Cultural Centre of Belgium, a large Saudi-established institution including a mosque situated 200 meters from the European Commission.

A spokesperson for the fire service said it had taken a call from the mosque from a person saying they believed that they had found anthrax powder, prompting the deployment of specialist crews. A police spokesperson later said the substance was flour.



Since the Paris attacks on November 13^th by French and Belgian Islamic State militants, there have been reports of threats against mosques used by Belgium's half million Muslims, among them some from an unknown group calling itself Christian State.