BELGIUM put in place a hastily arranged plan of action on Monday after Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group (GIA) threatened to unleash a “bloodbath” unless the authorities release several of its leaders. The units taking part in the anti-terrorist cell include a top police unit called Interforce, set up after terrorist attacks in the 1980s by the Fighting Communist Cells (CCC), a group of militant Belgian communists now in prison. The GIA is the most hardline of the Islamic militant groups which have fought the Algerian authorities since 1992. Belgium has tried several Islamic militants since 1995. Leading militants have included Farid Melouk, 33, also wanted by France in connection with a series of GIA attacks, and Mohamed Badache, an Algerian who fought in Afghanistan. The two were sentenced last month to nine and five years in prison respectively.