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Belgian police 'neutralize' man in hunt for Paris attacks suspects

Tuesday, 15 March 2016 4:58 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 15 March 2016 6:53 PM ]

A police officer runs in the street near the site of a shooting on Dries-Driesstraat at Forest-Vorst in Brussels, Belgium, March 15, 2016. (AFP photo)

Police in a southern Brussels neighborhood "neutralized" Tuesday a man during a hunt for suspects linked to the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, France, Belgian RTBF broadcaster said.

Two other suspects are still at large, the report said. It is not yet clear whether the suspect has been killed or injured.

Earlier reports said shots were fired after police launched a raid in the Forest neighborhood of the Belgian capital. Four police officers were injured.

In November last year, the French capital was rocked by terrorist attacks that killed 130 people.

A lockdown was in place in an area close to Molenbeek, which is home to several people suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks.

The website of the Derniere Heure newspaper said the two suspects were on the run after shots were fired in the Tuesday raid. A spokesman for the federal prosecutor confirmed that shots were fired at police officers.

France said it was contributing to the raid, with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve saying that a team made up of Belgian and French police officers “came under fire-shots from heavy weapons.”

Belgium has tried to play a significant role over the past four months in finding nationals who were the key figures behind the Paris attacks. The hunt especially aims to catch international fugitive Salah Abdeslam, whose brother Brahim was one of the main attackers in Paris. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the attacks, was also a Brussels resident while another attacker, Bilal Hadfi, was said to have lived for a time in Forest.

The repeated raids in Brussels and elsewhere in Belgium, which have led to 19 arrests in connection to the Paris carnage, are meant to prevent attacks in the small Western European country as it has been prime recruiting ground in Europe for Daesh, a Takfiri group based in Iraq and Syria.

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www.presstv.co.uk