Source: BBCNews
The Belgian authorities have reduced the threat level in Brussels from its highest level of four to three.
The city was locked down for nearly a week, with schools, universities, and the metro system closed and soldiers deployed on the streets.
The escalation to level four came after suspects in the Islamic State attacks in Paris were linked to the city.
At least one suspected Paris gunman - Salah Abdeslam - remains at large. He lived in Brussels for several years.
His brother Brahim, who died detonating a suicide vest in Paris, was also a city resident.
"We can confirm that the Threat Analysis Coordination Agency re-evaluated the threat level from four to level three," a spokesman for the crisis centre said.
The reduction to level three lowers the perceived threat from "serious and imminent" to "possible and likely", bringing Brussels in line with the rest of the country.
The lowering of the threat level came as a surprise, since the government had said that it would probably keep the highest threat level in the capital through the weekend.
Earlier on Thursday, fire crews and decontamination teams attended a major mosque in the city after a suspicious powder was discovered. The white powder turned out to be flour.
Police have mounted a number of raids and searches over the past two weeks in Belgium and have charged five people with terror-related offences.
The most recent raid took place on Thursday in Sambreville, 80km (50 miles) south of Brussels. No suspects were detained.
On Sunday night, Belgian police carried out a series of raids that the government said were linked to a possible imminent attack. No firearms or explosives were found, however, and 15 of 16 people detained were released on Monday.
More than 130 people were killed in the coordinated attacks in Paris and more than 360 wounded.