Cherif Kouachi

Soldiers fanned out to guard possible terror targets across Belgium Saturday, including some buildings within the Jewish quarter of the port city of Antwerp. It was the first time in 30 years that authorities used troops to reinforce police in Belgium’s cities, and came a day after anti-terror raids netted dozens of suspects across Western Europe.

A rally of defiance and sorrow, protected by an unparalleled level of security, on Sunday will honor the 17 victims of three days of bloodshed in Paris that left France on alert for more violence.

The militant chatter spread like wildfire. Within minutes of news breaking about the deadly terror attack on a Paris newspaper this week, supporters of extremist Islamic groups extolled the suspects in the massacre as “lions of the caliphate” and praised the killings on social media.

According to a poll conducted by Pew Research well before Wednesday’s suspected Islamic terror attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, French views of Muslim minorities are overwhelmingly positive. In fact, out of all Europeans, the French view Muslims in their country the most favorably.

The hunt for the two killers who attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo is over, after a three-day chase and a standoff at a warehouse outside Paris. The two suspects were killed, and the hostage they took was freed.

Key members of the French government will meet Saturday morning to decide on new measures aimed at thwarting a repeat of the attacks in Paris that culminated in a massacre of 12 people at a satirical newspaper, and a supermarket bloodbath that left four hostages dead.

French security forces struggled with two rapidly developing hostage-taking situations Friday, one northeast of Paris where two terror suspects were holed up with a hostage in a printing plant and the other an attack on a kosher market in Paris involving at least five hostages.