One suspect dead in Brussels antiterror operation linked to Paris attacks

Four officers were also wounded after at least one gunman opened fire on police.

A police officer runs on top of a roof during Tuesday's antiterror operation in the Forest neighbourhood of Brussels. Laurent Dubrule/EPA

BRUSSELS // Police shot dead one suspect on Tuesday during a major Belgian-French antiterror operation in Brussels linked to the Paris attacks, Belgian media reports said.

Four officers were wounded during the operation after at least one gunman opened fire on police.

Three officers were wounded during an initial search of a property in the southern suburb of Forest while a fourth was hit by gunfire during the manhunt that followed..

French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that “a team composed of Belgian and French police came under fire, apparently from assault weapons, during a raid”.

Two hours after the first shots were fired, a big swathe of the Forest neighbourhood was in lockdown as special police units in body armour and balaclava hoods moved in, several with their guns drawn. “Two individuals, apparently barricaded themselves inside a home,” said Forest mayor Marc-Jean Ghyssels.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the two people escaped, or whether police were searching for more people during the manhunt.

A police official said that the antiterror raid was linked to the Paris attacks last November 13 that killed 130 people.

The lockdown in the area continued more than an hour after the first shots were fired. The Forest neighbourhood is close to Molenbeek, home to several people involved in the Paris attacks.

Police sealed off a wide perimeter around the area where the shots were heard to keep the many bystanders at a safe distance. A helicopter was hovering overhead to patrol the area as police were still looking for at least one suspect.

Several hundred spectators were trying to get a closer look at the operation in the multicultural neighbourhood, which has a big Audi car factory nearby. Audi asked its personnel to stay at the plant while the police raid was going on.

Four months on, Belgian police and magistrates have still been piecing together the role Belgian nationals played in aiding the Paris attackers, as well as trying to track down missing suspects including international fugitive Salah Abdeslam, whose brother Brahim was one of the suicide bombers.

The suspected ringleader of the attacks was a Brussels resident, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Another attacker, Bilal Hadfi, was said to have lived for a time in the Forest neighbourhood.

Belgian authorities have stepped up their counterterror efforts since a lone gunman killed four people at the Brussels Jewish museum in May 2014. The small Western European country has also been prime recruiting ground for ISIL, and officials freely acknowledge their concerns about what radicalised recruits might do after returning home from the battlefields of Syria or Iraq.

Tuesday’s raid was a reminder of the anxious days the Belgian capital lived through in November and December, when the subway and schools were closed for a time, and the New Year’s Eve fireworks display was cancelled because of the threat of extremist violence.

* Associated Press, Agence France-Presse