Belgian authorities have lowered their terror threat alert to the second-highest level in the capital Brussels, calling a threat "possible and likely".
Peter Mertens of the Belgian crisis centre said that the threat assessment now stood at the same level throughout the country.
Since Saturday morning, Brussels - home to the European Union and Nato headquarters - had been wary of a threat that was considered "serious and imminent".
The lowering of the threat level came as a surprise, since the government had said that it would likely keep the highest threat level in the capital through the weekend.
On Sunday night, Belgian police carried out a series of raids that the government said were linked to a possible imminent attack like those in Paris on November 13, which killed 130 people.
No firearms or explosives were found and 15 of the 16 detainees had to be released the following day.
Belgian authorities raided three more places outside of Brussels on Thursday which they said are linked to the Paris attacks, but made no arrests.
After raiding a house near southern Sambreville, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the capital, they launched two more raids in Verviers, 125 kilometres (80 miles) east of the capital.
Verviers was already the scene of a bloody stand-off in January when two suspects were killed by security forces in a shoot-out. The government said at the time it had averted an imminent attack.
Belgian authorities already have five suspects in prison facing terrorism charges related to the Paris attacks.
At least one Belgian fugitive, Salah Abdeslam, is on the run while another Belgian man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was suspected of orchestrating the attacks, was killed in a police raid north of Paris.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here