The most-wanted fugitive from November's Paris attacks was arrested after a shootout with police in Brussels on Friday, Belgium's prime minister said. Charles Michel described the capture of 26-year-old French suspect Salah Abdeslam and two others as "a very important result in the battle for democracy". French President Francois Hollande said he was confident they had links to Syria and to Islamic State which claimed the attacks that killed 130 people. "The threat level is very high," said Hollande, who was in Brussels for an EU summit. He added that it was now clear many more people had been involved in the Paris attacks on a sports stadium, bars and cafes and concert hall than had been realised. Michel said Abdeslam was wounded — local media said he was shot in the leg — in the operation launched as EU leaders met on the other side of the city to discuss Europe's migration crisis. U.S. President Barack Obama sent his congratulations.

Police at the scene of a security operation in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek in Brussels, Belgium, March 18, 2016. Francois Lenoir | Reuters

Television footage showed armed security forces dragging a man with a sack on his head out of a building and into a car. "We got him," Belgian government minister Theo Francken said on Twitter. Hollande said France wanted to extradite Abdeslam, who was born and raised in Brussels to a Moroccan immigrant family, and hoped he would yield more clarity about an operation mounted by Syria-based Islamic State in which all the known attackers died. Several bursts of gunfire rang out earlier in the capital's Molenbeek area — Abdeslam's home neighbourhood and the scene of past investigations into the Paris attacks - and police officers surrounded an apartment block there from around 4 p.m. (1500 GMT).





Two explosions were heard after the arrest, though it was unclear whether they were part of a new operation or the clear-up. Some four hours later, the main police presence had stood down but crime scene investigators were still at work. There had long been speculation about whether Abdeslam had stayed in Belgium or managed to flee to Syria. Security services will be seeking information from Abdeslam on Islamic State plans and structures, his contacts in Europe and Syria and support networks and finance. Hollande said he was sure Abdeslam, whose elder brother blew himself up at a Parisian cafe on Nov. 13, had also been in the city that night and had helped plan the attack.

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