DHAKA: Central Brussels is almost empty after restaurants and bars shut early amid fears of a Paris-style attack, hours after Belgium raised its terror alert.

Soldiers patrolled the streets as a manhunt continued for the fugitive Salah Abdeslam, who was thought to be armed with a suicide belt, reports the BBC.

Reports said he was in the Brussels area and trying to get to Syria.

The city was a base for the attackers - Islamic State militants - who killed 130 people in Paris.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said there was "quite precise information" that "several individuals with arms and explosives could launch an attack... perhaps even in several places".

Abdeslam appeared to have a large jacket and may have been ready to blow himself up, one of the men who drove him to Belgium has told his lawyer.

BDST: 0847 HRS, NOV 22, 2015
RS