French national, 26, has been on the run since November’s attacks in French capital that left 130 dead

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A suspect in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, has been shot and arrested in a police raid in the Molenbeek area of Brussels after a four-month international manhunt.



“We got him,” the Belgian secretary of state for asylum and migration tweeted.

Paris terror attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam 'arrested in Brussels' – live Read more

Police said the 26-year-old was wounded in the leg and that a second person was arrested during the operation, which took place as EU leaders met on the other side of the city to discuss Europe’s migration crisis.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Brussels raid: suspect hauled into police car - video

The French president, François Hollande, and the Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, left the summit to discuss the operation.

There were several exchanges of gunfire in Molenbeek – the scene of past investigations into the Paris attacks – and police officers were seen surrounding an apartment block there.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police at the scene of a security operation in the Brussels district of Molenbeek. Photograph: François Lenoir/Reuters

Television footage showed black-clad security forces wearing balaclavas guarding a street. Reporters at the scene described white smoke rising from a rooftop and a helicopter hovering overhead.

About three hours after the raid began, two more explosions were heard in the area and Belgian media reported that a third man was arrested.

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The police operation was launched just as Belgian prosecutors confirmed that Abdeslam’s fingerprints had been found at a flat that was raided in the Forest area of Brussels on Tuesday. Two suspects fled that raid.



A Belgian federal prosecutor, Eric van der Sypt, said it had not been established how old the fingerprints were, or how long Abdeslam had spent in the flat.

When French and Belgian police arrived to search the flat on Tuesday, they were fired at from behind the door with automatic weapons. A police sniper shot one of the gunmen through a window: Mohamed Belkaïd, a 35-year-old Algerian living illegally in Belgium and known to police over a theft case in 2014. “Next to his body was a Kalashnikov, a book on Salafism and an Islamic State flag,” according to Thierry Werts, of the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office.

The Belgian prosecutor’s office said Belkaïd was “more than likely” one of the key logistics operatives behind the Paris attacks who had been sought by police under the false name of Samir Bouzid. Le Monde reported that investigators believe a man using the name Samir Bouzid had received the last text message sent by three of the Paris attackers before they staged a bloody gun attack on a rock gig at the Bataclan concert hall. The message said: “We’ve left, we’re on the way.”

Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national who grew up in Brussels, fled Paris for Belgium by car hours after the 13 November attacks that killed 130 people.

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Police believe he also played a key role in the logistics of the Paris attacks and escorted the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up at the Stade de France as part of the coordinated assault.

Investigators are considering whether he planned to carry out his own suicide attack in the 18th arrondissement of the French capital, and perhaps backed out. His brother blew himself up and died at a Paris bar on Boulevard Voltaire during the attacks.

Abdeslam had called friends to collect him in Paris hours after the attacks. While they were driving him back to Belgium, the car was briefly stopped at the border and Abdeslam’s ID was checked, but he was allowed through and has been on the run ever since.

He reportedly stayed holed up in a flat in the Schaerbeek district in north Brussels for three weeks after the attacks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Belgian security forces seal off an area during an anti-terror operation in Molenbeek. Photograph: Stephanie Lecocq/EPA

In January, Belgian authorities said they had found two flats and a house used by Abdeslam and other suspects in the run-up to the attacks.

A fingerprint belonging to Abdeslam was found in one flat along with traces of explosives, possible suicide belts and a drawing of a person wearing a large belt.

Authorities also found DNA traces of Bilal Hadfi, another of the attackers who blew himself up with a bomb vest near the French national stadium during the attacks.

Reuters contributed to this report