Huge Brussels manhunt after Paris attacks raid shootout

March 15, 2016

Brussels (AFP) – Belgian and French police launched a huge manhunt for two suspects in Brussels on Monday after gunmen opened fire, wounding three officers, during a joint anti-terror operation linked to the Paris attacks.

Heavily armed police had surrounded a building at the scene in the Forest district in south Brussels after the shootout, and an AFP photographer said there was a fresh burst of gunfire nearly two hours after the initial shots.

But Salah Abdeslam — a key suspect in the November Paris massacre which killed 130 people and who fled to Brussels after the attacks — was not the target of the Brussels search, sources said.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed that French police were also involved and said the attackers used assault rifles, apparently confirming reports that said the gunmen fired Kalashnikovs.

“A team made up of Belgian and French police came under fire, apparently from assault weapons, during a raid,” he said after arriving in the Ivory Coast capital following a weekend shooting rampage by jihadists there that killed 18. “I’m being prudent because the operation is ongoing and I won’t make any other comment than to confirm that this did take place,” he told a news conference.

Local mayor Marc-Jean Ghyssels told reporters at the scene in Brussels that “two people are holed up in a building” at the scene, while Belgian media reported that two suspects were on the run.