Brussels raids: Paris attack suspect Abdeslam arrested

Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has been wounded and arrested in a raid in Brussels, officials have said.

They said Abdeslam, who had been on the run since the November attacks, was wounded in the leg as police moved in on a flat in the Molenbeek area.

"We got him," said Theo Francken, Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration.

Abdeslam — one of Europe's most wanted men — is a key suspect in the jihadist attacks in Paris which 130 people died.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel had to urgently leave an EU-Turkey summit as details of the operation began to emerge.

The raid apparently continued late into the evening, as two more explosions were reported recently at the scene.

Bomb  factory

Abdeslam's fingerprints were found in a Brussels flat that was raided on Tuesday.
But Belgian prosecutors told the BBC earlier on Friday it was not clear exactly when he was at the flat because the prints could not be dated.

One man — identified as Algerian national Mohamed Belkaid and linked to the Paris attacks — was shot dead during the raid in the southern Forest suburb on Tuesday.

Officials said at the time they believed as many as two other suspects may have escaped.

Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national born in Brussels, had lived in Molenbeek before the 13 November attacks.

He is believed to have returned to Belgium immediately after the attacks, in which his brother Brahim blew himself up.

In January, police said they may have found a bomb factory in the Schaerbeek district of Brussels used as a hideout by Abdeslam.

Police found traces of explosives, three handmade belts and a fingerprint of the suspect.

Abdeslam has been the subject of a massive manhunt since the attacks, claimed by militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.

Officials have identified most of the people they believe to have carried out the assaults.

Most of the suspects either died during the attacks or were killed in subsequent police raids.

Parts of Brussels were sealed off for days after the Paris massacre amid fears of a major incident. A number of suspected attackers lived in the Belgian capital.

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