Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam shot and arrested in Brussels

Baku. 19 March. REPORT.AZ/ 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, Report informs citing the foreign media.

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

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.

 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.

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.

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.