Hunt on for 2 in Belgian raid linked to Paris attacks

BRUSSELS — Belgian investigators were hunting Wednesday for two suspects who fled an apartment linked to the November 13 attacks in Paris, one day after a police sniper killed a gunman holed up inside and authorities found a stock of ammunition and a Daesh flag, officials said.

Four officers were wounded in Tuesday's joint French-Belgian raid in a Brussels neighbourhood after unexpectedly coming under fire in an apartment they believed was empty.

Prosecutors on Wednesday released without charges two men they held in the wake of the raid, leaving the hunt on for two suspects who have not been identified.

The dead man was identified as an Algerian man living illegally in Belgium, Mohamed Belkaid, whose only contact with authorities appeared to be a two-year-old theft charge, said Thierry Werts, a Belgian prosecutor.

Belkaid, 35, was shot to death by a police sniper as he prepared to fire on police from a window, Werts said. A Kalashnikov was found by his body, as well as a book on Salafism, an ultraconservative strain of Islam.

Inside the apartment in the Forest neighbourhood of Brussels, police found the banner of the Daesh terror group as well as 11 Kalashnikov loaders and a large quantity of ammunition, the prosecutor said.

"We were not expecting a violent armed reaction," Prime Minister Charles Michel told Belgium's RTL radio.

The anti-terror raid was linked to the November 13 gun-and-bombing attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead. The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for the attacks, in which Belgian citizens played key roles.

Among the fugitives is Belgian Salah Abdeslam, who fled the Paris attacks that night, slipped through a dragnet into Brussels and has not been seen since.

On Tuesday, four Belgian and two French police officers unexpectedly came under fire by at least two people armed with a Kalashnikov and a riot gun as soon as they opened the door to the Forest apartment, according to a statement from the Belgian prosecutors.

Four officers, including a French policewoman, were slightly wounded.

The search of another Forest residence Tuesday evening turned up another Kalashnikov as well as two loaded magazines, Belgian officials said.

Since the Paris attacks, the officials said 58 people have been detained in Belgian searches directly linked to the Paris attacks investigation and another 23 arrested in related probes.

Both countries remain on edge.

In France, four people were arrested at dawn on Wednesday amid fears of a separate planned attack. Those arrests were not linked to the Belgian investigation.

One of the four, a former inmate under house arrest, was suspected of being in contact with Daesh extremists in Syria, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said. All three were born in France and were between 21 and 30 years old, according to a judicial official who requested anonymity to discuss the case.