Drama: Terror suspect arrested in Belgian suburb of Molenbeek after a raid to find Paris terrorist fugitive Salah Abdeslam - dubbed the world's most wanted man. Drama: Terror suspect arrested in Belgian suburb of Molenbeek after a raid to find Paris terrorist fugitive Salah Abdeslam - dubbed the world's most wanted man.
Martin Robinson and Darren Boyle
Paris terrorist fugitive Salah Abdeslam – dubbed the world’s most wanted man – is believed to have been arrested by Belgian police in a raid on a safehouse in a suburb known as the “jihadi capital of Europe”.
Dozens of heavily-armed police and special forces rushed a flat in Molenbeek, Brussels, as they hunted for the 26-year-old – one of three “blood brothers” believed to be at the heart of French massacres where 129 people died on Friday.
Abdelsam has been the subject of a vast international manhunt but incredibly he was stopped and then released by French police guarding the Belgian border hours after the attacks.
It appears the terror suspect, believed to be a getaway driver and potential shooter, went into hiding in Molenbeek, where the eight-strong ISIS terror cell may have met before the Paris raids to gather automatic weapons and suicide vests.
Huge numbers of armed police and special forces in balaclavas and carrying machine guns surrounded a top floor flat in the area this morning.
Special forces were seen climbing down from the roof with one witness saying he dropped tear gas through a Velux window to flush out a suspect who came out on to a balcony with his arms up.
A hooded man was handcuffed and put in a car by plain-clothes police – the Belgian media claimed this man was Salah Abdeslam but the authorities have not confirmed this.
The authorities confirmed that the operation was launched to capture Abdeslam but a city spokesman said he was unable to confirm whether the suspect was actually held.
French police questioned Abdeslam in the early hours of Saturday morning on a motorway close to the Belgian border as he returned to Brussels with two other men, just hours after the attack.
Meanwhile, Belgian police have started to clear a large section of Brussels city centre after a suspicious car with French number plates was spotted around the Joseph II street. Bomb squad technicians are preparing to examine the car after a security cordon is established.
As part of the ongoing operation, police have called out over a loudhailer to suspects inside a property in Molenbeek.
Trained negotiators have warned those inside the property to “leave with their hands up”.
Dramatic video captured on Twitter showed the moment of the raid.
He is one the three “blood brothers” behind the Paris massacre is still on the run today after police let him go as it emerged a Bataclan suicide bomber was charged with trying to join al-Qaeda in 2012 but was still free to slaughter 89 people.
It came as French police said the mastermind of the Paris attacks is Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of ISIS’s top executioners, who even took his 13-year-old brother to fight in Syria.
Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, 26, from a suburb of Brussels known as the “jihadi” capital of Europe, is now the subject of a vast international manhunt, but incredibly he was stopped and then released by officers guarding the Belgian border hours after the attacks.
One of his brothers, Ibrahim Abdeslam, 31, was one of seven terrorists who died on Friday night after he blew himself up in a solo attack outside cafe Comptoir Voltaire. He had rented a black Seat found yesterday in Paris packed with AK-47s and ammunition.
The third sibling, Mohammed Abdeslam, was in custody in Belgium last night after being arrested in a Brussels and has now been released.
This morning French police identified a Bataclan bomber as homegrown terrorist Samy Amimour, 28, who was known to anti-terror officers in 2012 when he was prosecuted for trying to flee France to join Al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen. A year later he slipped out of France to join ISIS in Syria.
French police have said homegrown terrorist Omar Ismaël Mostefai , 29, from Courcouronnes, Paris, was one of the Bataclan suicide bombers where 89 died while Belgian Bilal Hadfi, 20, who had spent time fighting with ISIS in Syria before returning to Europe, detonated his suicide vest at the Stade de France where three died.
Stade de France suicide bomber Ahmed Almuhamed travelled to France as an asylum seeker through Greece after being saved from a sinking ship. Greek ferry tickets reveal he travelled to Europe with another man named as Mohammed Almuhamed. – Daily Mail