One dead in Brussels shoot-out linked to Paris attacks

Salah Abdeslam.

Police shot dead one suspect on Tuesday during a major Belgian-French anti-terror operation in Brussels linked to the Paris attacks, after gunmen opened fire and wounded four officers.

The dead person had not been identified, but prosecutors said it was not Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the November Paris massacre which killed 130 people, and who fled to Brussels after the attacks.

Armed police came under fire as they carried out a search on a property in the Forest suburb in the south of the Belgian capital, sparking a series of gun battles in which one suspect was killed, prosecutors said.

"Police were fired at," Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesperson for the Belgian federal prosecutor, told AFP, adding that the search was "linked to the Paris attacks investigation".

"A body was found during a search of a house ... his identity has not been established yet, but whatever the case, it is not Salah Abdeslam," Van Der Sypt was later quoted as saying by the Belga news agency.
Three Belgian police officers were wounded by gunfire during the initial search of the property, while a fourth was hit by gunfire during the huge police mobilisation afterwards.