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2 gunmen have been arrested after a shootout with police in Brussels

Mar 16, 2016, 14:31 IST

Police at the scene where shots were fired during a police search of a house in the suburb of Forest near Brussels.REUTERS/Yves Herman

The two suspects on the run after a shootout with police in Brussels on Tuesday have been arrested according to Belgian news site VTM.

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One was reportedly arrested on Wednesday morning while the other was captured overnight.

A whole section of the Belgium capital was placed on lockdown on Tuesday after a raid linked to the November 13 attacks in Paris turned deadly.

Four police officers were wounded during the joint operation between French and Belgian authorities, including one French police woman, according to the RTBF.

One gunman, armed with an automatic weapon, who has still not been identified, was shot and killed by police.

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Police operations in the area continued throughout the night and into the early hours of the morning, as the manhunt for the suspects entered its second day.

The mayor of Forest, the suburb where the raid took place, Marc-Jean Ghyssels told RTBF that the zone of the raid is now "totally liberated, totally secured and operations are complete."

The raid carried out on Tuesday was, according to Belgian prosecutors, linked to the Paris attacks of November, which killed 130 people and left hundreds more injured, but did not target the prime suspect still on the run, 26-year-old Frenchman Salah Abdeslam.

It is still unclear how many people shot at the police officers during the raid, but three were wounded in the initial attack and one more was injured during a second shootout later in the afternoon on Tuesday.

The building in which the raided flat was has now been sealed off and the houses around the flat are also being inspected as authorities try to figure out how the fugitives escaped.

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A masked Belgian policeman secures the area from a rooftop near the scene where shots were fired during a police search of a house in the suburb of Forest near Brussels, Belgium, March 15, 2016.REUTERS/Yves Herman

The Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, has called an emergency meeting of Belgium's national security council on Wednesday. He talked to Bel RTL about the raids, saying the police forces had been surprised by the violence and intensity of the response.

"We weren't expecting this," Michel said, "After tonight, there are police operations that will continue in the next hours and days. The threat stays present ... but my message is that everyone remain calm."

Brussels, headquarters of the European Union as well as Western military alliance NATO, has remained on high alert since the November 13 attacks on Paris, after being locked down for a few days following the attack as it emerged that it was planned from the Belgian capital.

Belgian police has reportedly conducted over 100 raids since November and military personnel still patrol the city as the threat and fear of a similar attack to Paris remains.

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