2016 Brussels police raids

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2016 Brussels police raids
Part of the aftermath of the November 2015 Paris attacks
Type Police raid
Target Forest and Molenbeek, Belgium
Date 15/18 March 2016
Outcome Salah Abdeslam and 4 other suspects arrested
Casualties March 15:
  • 1 suspect killed
  • 4 police officers injured

March 18:

  • 2 suspects injured
  • 5 arrests

On 15 and 18 March 2016, Belgian police carried out raids on houses in Brussels. The raids were conducted in connection to the attacks in Paris four months earlier. In the raids, one suspect was killed and five others were arrested, including Salah Abdeslam, who is suspected of direct involvement in the Paris attacks.

Raids

15 March

Police carried out a raid on a house in Forest, a suburb of Brussels. A police statement said that the raid was related to the November 2015 Paris attacks.[1][2] The house was situated in the Rue du Dries, near the Audi factory in Forest.[3] Four police officers, one of them French, were wounded in the raid.[4] One suspect was killed, and a manhunt went underway for two other suspects.[5]

The suspect killed was identified by Belgian police as Mohamed Belkaid, a 35-year-old Algerian citizen. Belkaid immigrated to and lived for several years in Sweden, where he married a Swedish woman who was fifteen years older than him. During this period, he was sent to prison four times.[6] In 2014, he traveled to Syria to commit jihad.[7] Belkaid is believed to have been an associate of Salah Abdeslam, a suspected accomplice in the Paris attacks.[8] He was killed after being shot by a police sniper,[9] but not before his actions allowed Abdeslam and another suspect to escape through the rooftops.[10]

Two other suspects, brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, evaded capture during the raid. They later committed suicide bombings in Brussels a week later on 22 March.[11]

It was reported that an ISIS flag and Salafist literature were found in the flat, together with a Kalashnikov rifle and ammunition.[12] Also found were detonators that investigators now believe were intended to be used during the 22 March bombings in Brussels.[13]

18 March

On 18 March, Belgian prosecutors stated that Abdeslam's fingerprints had been found in the Forest flat.[14] Later that day, there were reports of further raids, and the sound of gunfire, in the Molenbeek area of Brussels.[15] Two suspects, identified as Abdeslam and Monir Ahmed Alaaj, were reportedly injured in one such raid.[9][16] Five people, including Abdeslam, were arrested during the raid.[17][18][19] On 16 April, the Interior Minister of Belgium, Jan Jambon, stated that protesters "threw stones and bottles at police and press" during Abdeslam's arrest.[20][21]

Another suspect, identified as 24-year-old Belgian citizen Najim Laachraoui, had not been caught yet.[22] He committed suicide bombings in Brussels a week later on 22 March.

Suspicion was apparently aroused to Abdeslam's location after a person in the flat made an unusually large pizza order. When officers arrived at the scene, they found the woman who made the food order with two other adults, children, and Abdeslam.[23] Police later announced that they were also led to Abdeslam's location after he phoned an associate they were monitoring, following his escape on 15 March.[10] Earlier, in December 2015, a police dossier was made containing information about a suspected radicalized person living in the flat. However, it wasn't passed to the relevant authority because, according to the Mechelen chief of police, the person responsible forgot to do so.[24]

Reactions

In the wake of the 18 March raid, French President François Hollande called Abdeslam's arrest "an important moment".[8] French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also welcome Abdeslam's arrest and added that more work needed to be done in tracking down terrorist cells in Europe.[25]

See also

References

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