Belgian police arrest prime suspect in Paris attacks: Report

Belgian police have reportedly arrested Salah Abdeslam, the prime suspect in the November 13, 2015 attacks in France.

The website of the Belgian paper Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN) said Friday that the fugitive Belgian national was arrested after a shootout in the capital, Brussels.

The daily said Abdeslam was wounded in the leg after police fired shots during the search operation that started in the suspect’s apartment earlier in the day in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels.

It said Abdeslam was taken to the hospital along with a second suspect who was also shot in the leg.

The RTBF, a French-language TV, reported earlier that two people had been wounded. It said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel left a European Union summit to follow the very sensitive issue.

French President Francois Hollande had said an important operation is underway in a Brussels neighborhood in connection with the November attacks in Paris which killed 130 people.

Belgian officials confirmed the arrest of Abdeslam, with immigration minister Theo Francken and Justice Minister Koen Geens both saying, “we got him.” 

France, however, has yet to officially confirm the arrest of the 26-year-old fugitive. Hollande said that he has no confirmation on the issue so far.

The HLN daily said the operation in Molenbeek was not over yet as explosions were heard in the area. It said police suspect that two other suspects are still holed up in the building where Abdeslam was captured.

Reports said the lockdown in the area has led to the entrapment of 20 children at two nearby schools. They said parents have been informed that access to one of the schools in Paal Street will be denied for at least several hours.

Sources said a third suspect could have been arrested although there was no official confirmation.

The search operation comes three days after Belgian and French security forces carried out a raid in the Forest neighborhood of Brussels, claiming to have neutralized a suspect of Paris attacks.

Belgian prosecutors said Friday the man shot dead in the raid was believed to have been an accomplice to Abdeslam as fingerprints found inside indicate Abdeslam himself was there at some point too.

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. Abdeslam’s 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 22 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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