Brussels raids: Paris attack suspect Abdeslam arrested

Media captionFootage emerges of arrest in Molenbeek

Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has been wounded and arrested in a raid in Brussels, officials have said.

Two other men have also been arrested, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has said.

French President Francois Hollande said he expected Abdeslam to be extradited to France "as rapidly as possible".

The raid came after his fingerprints were found in a Brussels flat that was raided on Tuesday.

Abdeslam, on the run since the attacks on 13 November, was wounded in the leg as police moved in on a flat in the Molenbeek area.

Dramatic footage shows him being bundled into a police car after a volley of gunfire.

One of Europe's most wanted men, Abdeslam is a key suspect in the jihadist attacks in Paris in which 130 people died.

Molenbeek raid: Live updates

Image captionThe moment Salah Abdeslam is bundled into a police car following his capture

Belgian police take part in a raid in Molenbeek, Brussels. Photo: 18 March 2016 — Image captionThe raid in Molenbeek came a few days after police targeted the Brussels suburb of Forest

Mr Michel said the raid had come after "intense" detective work.

"It's a very important result in the battle for democracy, for the values that we want to embody against this abominable form of obscurantism," he said, speaking alongside Mr Hollande.

The French president said Abdeslam's arrest was an "important moment" but added that it was not the "final conclusion".

"There have been arrests already and there will have to be more because we know that the network was quite widespread in Belgium, in France, in other countries of Europe as well," he said.

"So until we have arrested all those who took part, contributed to or financed that terrorist network that committed the abominable attacks, the war acts of 13 November, our fight will not be over until then."

Possible accomplices

The raid in Molenbeek followed the discovery of Abdeslam's fingerprints in a flat in the southern Forest suburb of Brussels that was raided on Tuesday, although prosecutors said the prints could not be dated.

One man - identified as Algerian national Mohamed Belkaid and linked to the Paris attacks - was shot dead in Tuesday's raid.

Officials said at the time they believed as many as two other suspects may have escaped.

The man killed on Tuesday, Belkaid, is believed to have used a false ID in the name of Samir Bouzid, while crossing the border between Austria and Hungary with Abdeslam and another man last September, the Belgian prosecutor's office said.

The false ID was also used four days after the Paris attacks at a Western Union office in Brussels to transfer money to Hasna Aitboulahcen, who Belgian prosecutors say was the niece of the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Both Abaaoud and Aitboulahcen died during a police raid on a flat in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. days after the Paris attacks.

Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national born in Brussels, had lived in Molenbeek before the Paris attacks.

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He is believed to have returned to Belgium immediately after the attacks, in which his brother Brahim blew himself up.

In January, police said they may have found a bomb factory in the Schaerbeek district of Brussels used as a hideout by Abdeslam.

Police found traces of explosives, three handmade belts and a fingerprint of the suspect.