Worried about letting the cat out of the bag, police in Belgium asked social media users to go “radio silent” on Twitter Sunday as Special Forces officers conducted a series of raids in the nation’s capital.
Brussels had been on lockdown since Saturday as police searched for a man suspected of being part of the attacks in Paris.
The raids began late Sunday, capping off a tense weekend that saw hundreds of troops hunting for one or more suspected extremists including Salah Abdeslam, a fugitive since being named a suspect in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks.
Between Sunday night and Monday morning, 21 people were detained.
On Sunday, police asked social media users to go “radio silent” and not to share locations and police movements during the lockdown.
Using the hashtags #BrusselsLockdown and #BruxellesLockdown, the same tags many used to share information of police whereabouts, many Twitter users began to flood the hashtags with pictures of their pets, mostly cats, in an effort to drown out police info being shared and to ease tense nerves during the lockdown.
Here’s a look.
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Police joined the party on Monday, posting a picture of a dish overflowing with dry cat food “For the cats that came to our aid last evening. Serve yourself! #BrusselsLockdown”
–with a file from The Associated Press
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