A member of emergency services wearing protective clothing, at right, investigates the scene in Schaerbeek, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. A witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood. About 50 officers appeared to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday鈥檚 attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets. AP PHOTO
BRUSSELS鈥擝elgian police shot a suspect as part of a huge European terror crackdown that netted several arrests Friday as France鈥檚 president said a jihadist network that targeted both Paris and Brussels was being 鈥渄estroyed鈥�.
Grieving Belgians held prayers in the rain in a central Brussels square carpeted with flowers and tributes to the 31 dead and 300 wounded in Tuesday鈥檚 carnage, but there was also growing anger at the government for letting a string of militants slip through the net.
The raids came as under-fire Belgian investigators uncovered alarming new evidence of a European jihadist cell tied to bombings at Brussels鈥� airport and metro, November鈥檚 Paris attacks and a new French plot.
READ: 2 blasts, 1 detained in Brussels police raids
鈥淓ven if the one that committed the attacks in Paris and Brussels is in the process of being destroyed鈥� there is still a heavy threat,鈥� French President Francois Hollande said.
The Belgian government has admitted 鈥渆rrors鈥� and two ministers offered to resign after Turkey said Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up in the airport attack, had been arrested and deported and that Belgium had ignored warnings that he was a 鈥渇oreign terrorist fighter鈥�.
READ: Belgian officials acknowledge warning signs missed
Ibrahim and his brother Khalid, the suicide bomber in the metro attack, were also on a US counterterrorism watch list, CNN reported.
Ibrahim was on the list even before the November Paris attacks while Khalid was added soon after. Prosecutors have confirmed Khalid was the subject of an international warrant over the Paris attacks.
European authorities are under huge pressure to better coordinate the tracking of homegrown extremists and fighters returning from Syria, as evidence grows of a thriving jihadist network straddling France and Belgium.
Suspect shot in leg
听
French police said they had foiled a terror strike in France by 34-year-old Reda Kriket 鈥� a man previously convicted in Belgium in a terror case alongside Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud 鈥� after arresting him and discovering explosives at his home.
Belgian police later arrested three people in connection with the new French conspiracy, prosecutors said.
In dramatic scenes, one of the suspects was shot in the leg at a tram stop in broad daylight in a huge operation by police in the Belgian capital鈥檚 Schaerbeek district, where police this week found a bomb factory linked to the Brussels attacks.
Deepening the links, Belgian prosecutors revealed that Brussels airport bomber Najim Laachraoui鈥檚 DNA was found on a suicide vest and a piece of cloth at the Bataclan concert hall where 90 people were killed during November鈥檚 Paris attacks, and on a bomb at the Stade de France stadium.
A huge manhunt is still under way for at least two suspects 鈥� one of the airport attackers whose bomb failed to go off and another man seen in the metro with the bomber there.
READ: Prosecutors say 6 arrested in Brussels attacks
Investigators also say Khalid El Bakraoui rented an apartment in Brussels used by key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam, who was taken into custody in the Belgian capital on March 18.
The nation鈥檚 federal prosecutor revealed Abdeslam 鈥渉as invoked his right to silence鈥� and has not spoken to investigators since a few brief interviews the day after his arrest.
鈥楥overed in blood鈥�
US officials confirmed that two Americans were among the Brussels dead. Secretary of State John Kerry said he stood by the Belgian people, echoing their backing for the United States after the 9/11 attacks.
鈥淭hen, voices across Europe declared, 鈥楯e suis Americain鈥�. Now, we declare, 鈥楯e suis Bruxellois鈥� and 鈥業k ben Brussel,鈥� Kerry said in French and Flemish, the country鈥檚 two main languages, after meeting Belgian Premier Charles Michel.
Harrowing stories continued to emerge from survivors of the attacks, in which people of around 40 nationalities were killed or wounded.
Briton David Dixon, 51, who lived in Brussels, texted his aunt after the airport blasts to say he was safe, but happened to be on the metro system when a suicide bomber blew himself up, British media said.
A 19-year-old Mormon missionary was at the Delta airlines check-in counter when the explosions went off at Zaventem.
鈥淢y body was actually picked up off the ground for a moment,鈥� Mason Wells told CNN. 鈥淢y left shoe was blown off and a large part of the right side of my body got really hot and then really cold and I was covered in鈥� a lot of blood that wasn鈥檛 mine.鈥�
Officials confirmed the deaths of young Dutch siblings Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski, who were reportedly on the phone with relatives when the airport bomb went off.
Among only three fatalities formally named so far are Peruvian Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz, 37. Her husband Christophe Delcambe, and their three-year-old twin daughters, only survived because the girls had run off and their father had chased after them.
A Chinese national was also confirmed among those killed.
Belgium has lowered its terror alert to the second-highest level for the first time since the attacks, but the police and military presence on the streets of the capital remains high.