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Paris Attacker Captured in Brussels

Salah Abdeslam reportedly taken alive

Police secure an area after an apartment raid in Brussels Tuesday / AP
March 18, 2016

A suspect in the Paris attacks has been captured alive following a shootout in Brussels, according to reports on Friday.

CNN reported that Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the deadly November attacks who has been on the run for months, was captured in the Belgian capital. According to Belgian media reports, Abdeslam was wounded in a shootout Friday, which led to his capture.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said at a press conference later in the day that two other terror suspects were also detained, labeling the individuals Abdeslam’s "accomplices." Police captured the three suspects during a raid of a building in Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels.

The capture comes days after Belgian and French police conducted a raid of a property in the Forest district of southern Brussels in connection with the Paris attacks. Abdeslam’s DNA and fingerprints were found at the property, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said earlier Friday.

At least two attackers fired at police when they entered the property on Tuesday, wounding four officers. An Algerian gunman who was shot by police during the exchange of fire was found with an ISIS flag and a book on Salafism, an extreme form of Islam. Two unidentified suspects escaped police.

The coordinated suicide bombings and shootings in Paris, claimed by ISIS, killed 130 people last November.

Abdeslam is a French citizen who was born in Belgium and is believed to have fled to Brussels after the attacks.