BRUSSELS (AP) – The Latest on developments in Brussels, where authorities are conducting a raid after they said they found the fingerprints of a fugitive Paris attacks suspect in an apartment earlier this week (all times local):
9:00 p.m.
French President Francois Hollande says France will seek the extradition of Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam and believes Belgium will respond as quickly and efficiently as possible.
PHOTOS: Paris attacks
He says it’s important that there will be arrests that will allow justice to take its course.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel says police faced armed resistance during a raid that captured Abdeslam and two other suspects Friday. Hollande says the operation was very dangerous and took exceptional courage. He says the threat level everywhere in Belgium and France remains high.
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8:45 p.m.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel says three suspects have been detained in a raid in Brussels, including fugitive Salah Abdeslam.
Michel says it is a success in the “fight against terrorism.” He says security forces captured Abdeslam and the two others.
French President Francois Hollande says Abdeslam has been formally identified. He congratulated the Belgian government for an operation that lasted several weeks and said the investigation is not over and more arrests will come.
Authorities say Abdeslam was among several attackers who targeted cafes, a rock concert and a stadium in Paris’ deadliest attacks in decades, which killed 130 people.
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7:35 p.m.
Officials are taking to Twitter to mark the capture of Paris attacks fugitive Salah Abdeslam in Brussels.
Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, tweeted, “Congratulations to Belgium authorities on capture of ISIL terrorist Saleh Abdeslam. We will never forget his and all ISIL victims.”
In Belgium, migration state secretary Theo Francken tweeted, “We have him.”
7:25 p.m.
Two explosions have been heard in a Brussels neighborhood where a Paris attacks fugitive was captured and police were looking for another person.
The deputy mayor of the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek earlier told The Associated Press police were still searching for one person who is holed up in a house.
French television showed images of police dragging a man with a white hooded sweatshirt into an unmarked police car.
Earlier in the day, police captured Salah Abdeslam, who has been on the run for four months since the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people.
Molenbeek has issued an emergency plan to give shelter to people who cannot go home because of police operations.
7 p.m.:
The deputy mayor of the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek says he’s received confirmation from the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office that Paris attacks fugitive Salah Abdeslam has been shot in the leg and detained.
Ahmed El Khannouss tells The Associated Press that Abdeslam was hurt and police have taken him away. He says police are still searching for one person who is holed up in a house.
Abdeslam has been on the run since the November attacks that killed 130 people. Molenbeek is home to several people involved in the attacks.
El Khannouss told i-Tele television earlier that there are two schools a few dozen meters (yards) from the ongoing police operation, and authorities have taken measures to secure them and residents.
Helmeted police with riot shields have cordoned off the area.
6:20 p.m.:
Two French police officials have told The Associated Press that Salah Abdeslam, the main fugitive from Islamic extremist attacks in Paris in November, has been arrested in Belgium’s capital after four months at large.
They said he was arrested Friday in a major police operation in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek. Both officials are in contact with people involved in the operation and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing operation.
Abdeslam was among several attackers who targeted cafes, a rock concert and a stadium in Paris’ deadliest attacks in decades, which killed 130 people.
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5:45 p.m.:
French President Francois Hollande says an important police operation is underway in a Brussels neighborhood in connection with the November Islamic extremist attacks in Paris.
Hollande told reporters in Brussels on Friday that he would not give details on the “operation that is under way.”
Hollande confirmed that the person being sought was linked to the Paris attacks but that any speculation over the fate of the individual would run counter to efforts “to stop or neutralize this individual.”
Molenbeek Mayor Francois Schepmans confirmed two people injured in the operation, which she said are continuing, but that she couldn’t confirm Belgian media reports Salah Abdeslam, the main fugitive from the Paris attacks, was one of two people hurt.
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5:30 p.m.:
Police have descended in force to search a residence in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, and Belgian media are reporting gunshots have been fired.
RTBF French-language TV reported late Friday afternoon that two people had been wounded.
The raids come after Belgian authorities said that fingerprints in an apartment raided earlier this week in another Brussels neighborhood belonged to the main fugitive from the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam.
As events unfolded, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel rushed out of a European Union summit, and was expected to be joined at Belgian government offices by Interior Minister Jan Jambon, RTBF said.
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