(CNN)After a four-month search for Europe's most-wanted fugitive, Paris terror attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam was captured Friday, Belgian officials said. Abdeslam
was wounded in a gunbattle with authorities in an anti-terror raid in
the Brussels' suburb of Molenbeek. Four other people were arrested.
A man named Monir Ahmed Alaaj -- also known as Amine Choukri -- also was wounded and hospitalized, prosecutors said.
Belgian
federal prosecutor's office spokesman Eric Van der Sypt said the others
detained included three members of a family who helped hide Abdeslam.
Earlier,
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel told reporters that Abdeslam, a
Belgian-born French citizen, and another person were wounded in the
raid. Abdeslam had a minor leg wound, Van der Sypt announced. French
President Francois Hollande said Paris prosecutors will urgently
request the extradition of Abdeslam. Hollande told reporters he is
confident Abdeslam will be sent to France for trial.
"I know the Belgian authorities will respond quickly and favorably to our request for extradition," Hollande said.
Officials said as of Friday night no more suspects were in the building where the raid took place. After
the news broke, many others joined in with laudatory messages,
including Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, where Abdeslam allegedly
took part in the carnage that left 130 dead.
"Congratulations to the police on the arrest of Salah Abdeslam," Hidalgo tweeted. Lieve
Reynebeau, who works on the street where Abdeslam was captured, said
she heard loud noises and then looked out to see police all around the
scene. She managed to leave the area like others -- "all of us safe" --
by foot.
Armed and heavily protected police, with
helmets and shields, converged on the area. Three explosions were heard
there later Friday, CNN French affiliate BFMTV reported, though it
wasn't clear if those were controlled blasts or part of a continuing
operation. And gunshots rang out shortly after 7 p.m. in the same area. Police continued to conduct operations in Molenbeek into Saturday morning.
Molenbeek focus of 'foreign fighter problem'
Molenbeek, an impoverished Brussels suburb, has a reputation as a hotbed for jihadism.
Several members of its large, predominantly Muslim population -- many
of whom are first-, second- and third-generation immigrants from North
Africa -- have been linked to terror plots and attacks.
Last
fall, Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens cited Molenbeek as a place
where more needs to be done to address what he called Belgium's "foreign
fighter problem." And in the
immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, authorities conducted raids
there and detained numerous individuals. One was Mohammed Abdeslam, the
brother of the wanted man captured Friday, who was taken into custody
and later released.
Mohammed Abdeslam told Belgian state
broadcaster RTBF that he thinks Salah at the "last minute ... decided to
reconsider" carrying out an attack himself November 13 -- ones that
ended, in the other cases, with the assailants dead. One
of those who did follow through was another brother, Ibrahim Abdeslam,
the suicide bomber who detonated explosives outside a cafe on Paris'
Boulevard Voltaire.
1 killed in Tuesday raid
Earlier
Friday, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office revealed that the
26-year-old Salah Abdeslam's fingerprints and DNA were found in a
Brussels apartment raided three days earlier. One person was killed and
two people escaped that operation, according to authorities.
The man killed by a special forces sniper was Mohamed Belkaid, an Algerian who used the name Samir Bouzid, and who is believed to have directed the Paris attackers via calls from Belgium, according to the prosecutor's office.
Belkaid
is believed to have helped Abdeslam travel prior to the attacks and
transferred money to a female cousin of Paris ringleader Abdelhamid
Abaaoud following the attack, the Belgian senior counter-terrorism
official told CNN in January.
Authorities
believe Abdeslam was using the apartment as a hideout following the
Paris attacks, according to the Belgian counter-terrorism official.
His possible escape spurred an intense manhunt in a country already on guard after last fall's attacks in the French capital.
Van
der Sypt noted earlier this week -- prior to Friday's raid -- that
authorities had searched more than 100 houses and arrested 58 people as
part of the post-Paris probe. Another 23 people have been arrested "in
linked investigations," he said then.
Suspect thought to have dropped off Paris bomber
Investigators
think Salah Abdeslam may have been the driver of a black Renault Clio
that dropped off three suicide bombers near the Stade de France, one of
the attack sites near Paris. They also believe he had worn a suicide
belt found on a Paris street after the attacks.
He
is believed to have called friends to take him to Belgium after the
attacks. They passed through police checkpoints, but Abdeslam had not
yet been identified as a suspect and they were allowed to continue on
their way.
Surveillance video emerged of him and another man at a gas station near the Belgian border the day after the attacks.
He has eluded authorities ever since.
In January, authorities found traces of explosives and Abdeslam's fingerprints in another Brussels apartment.
Some theories suggested he had returned to Syria following the attacks.
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