FILE – In this Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015, file photo, police guard a street in which special intervention forces searched a house in the Molenbeek neighborhood in Brussels. Molenbeek is separated from the Midi section of Brussels by part of a mosaic of jurisdictions of 19 municipalities and 6 policing zones, all for a population of 1 million, long hampering cooperation. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)
Salah Abdeslam, the Islamic State militant behind the Paris terror attacks in November, was arrested in Belgium’s capital Friday after four months at large, two French police officials told The Associated Press.
While the French President François Hollande told reporters in Brussels he would not give details on the “operation that is under way,” the mayor of the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, François Schepmans, confirmed two people were injured in the current operation, which she said are continuing.
She didn’t immediately confirm Belgian media reports that Salah Abdeslam, the main fugitive from the Paris attacks, was one of two people hurt. However, a source with knowledge of the operation told PPD “we got em.”
Abdeslam escaped and fled from Paris after the gun and bomb attacks that killed 130 people at the Bataclan Theatre on November 13, a national stadium and cafes. Most of the Paris attackers died that night, including Abdeslam’s brother Brahim, who blew himself up during the course of the attack. The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for the attacks, in which Belgian nationals played key roles.
Abdeslam, who alluded capture for four months, bragged on social media about how freely he was able to move back and forth from Europe to Syria posing as a Syrian refugee.
