(CNN) Paris terror attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam was captured alive Friday, a Belgian counter-terrorism source told CNN.
Belgium’s state broadcaster reported that the Belgian-born French citizen was injured in a shootout that ended with his capture. The Belgian counter-terrorism source said two people were wounded.
“We have him,” tweeted Theo Francken, Belgium’s state secretary for asylum policy and migration.
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.
The 26-year-old Abdeslam was brought to a hospital after being shot in the leg, CNN Belgium affiliate VTM reported, citing a police source. The same broadcaster said two suspects may still be in the house in Molenbeek where Abdeslam was captured.
Lieve Reynebeau, who works on the street where Abdeslam was captured, told CNN that 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.
Molenbeek focus of ‘foreign fighter problem’
Molenbeek, the impoverished Brussels suburb where Friday’s raid took place, 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.