Three charged in Belgium over suspected IS support

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A judge charged three men with supporting Islamic State following house searches across Belgium in which eight people were taken for questioning, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday. The men, a 23-year-old Serb and Kosovar nationals aged 23 and 27, were accused of being part of a terrorist organisation, prosecutors said in a statement. The other five detained on Tuesday were released without charge. On Tuesday, prosecutors said they had carried out the house searches looking for those who support Islamic State financially and through the recruitment of fighters to travel to Syria. Belgium gained a reputation for being a European base for Jihadists after it appeared that much of the Paris attacks in November 2015 in which 130 people were killed were planned in the country. The capital Brussels was itself a scene of Jihadist bombings in March of this year, in which 32 people were killed at the airport and on the city's metro line. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek, editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Angus MacSwan)