A truck believed to be carrying nearly 34,000 litres of chemicals has been stolen in Belgium.
The lorry was taken from a transport firm based in Zedelgem, close to the Belgian port city of Ostend on Saturday.
Despite initial reports this morning, Interpol say they are not involved in a hunt for the missing truck, which is said to contain 33,500 litres of a chemical substance.
A truck believed to be carrying nearly 34,000 litres of chemicals has been stolen in Belgium
Belgium’s Federal Police confirmed to MailOnline that a truck had been stolen in Zedelgem and that it contained a chemical substance.
But a spokesman said that ‘as far as we know’ the substance ‘cannot be used as an explosive material’.
Prosecutors in Bruges said: ‘A transport company in Zedelgem was the victim of a theft of a semi-trailor overnight on January 20 to 21, 2018.
‘The trailer was filled with 33,500 litres of radiacid 0254, a fatty acid and is not used as a precursor for explosives.’
Interpol, the world’s largest international police organisation with 192 members, told MailOnline it ‘has not issued any alert in relation to a truck stolen in Belgium’.
Italian media have reported that the number plate of the vehicle is 1-QEB-708.
It comes a day after Belgium lowered its terror threat level after three years of high alert that included the Brussels bombings. Pictured: Victims of the 2016 ISIS attack on Brussels Zaventem airport
It comes a day after Belgium lowered its terror threat level after three years of high alert that included the Brussels bombings.
Prime Minister Charles Michel said the OCAM national crisis centre had reduced the level from three to two on a maximum scale of four, with ‘occasional exceptions’.
But Michel said it was ‘not the same level two as before’ the attacks, adding that a new and reinforced security culture was now in place in Belgium.
Michel’s spokesman Frederic Cauderlier told AFP that troops who have been on Belgian streets since 2015 would still be stationed outside sensitive sites.
Belgian media said these included nuclear power stations and religious sites such as synagogues.
ISIS suicide attacks on Brussels airport (pictured) and a metro station killed 32 people in March 2016
They would also be deployed at major gatherings, for example sporting events, Cauderlier said.
The threat has been at level three – ‘probable and likely’ – or higher since the smashing of a terror cell in the town of Verviers on January 2015 that was planning an attack on police.
The Verviers cell also had links to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of the November 2015 ISIS attacks on Paris that killed 130 people.
Belgium further raised the terror level to four – signifying a ‘serious and imminent threat’ – after the Paris attack, and placed the capital Brussels on lockdown for a week.
It again raised the threat to four on March 22, 23 and 24, 2016, after ISIS suicide attacks on Brussels airport and a metro station which killed 32 people.