His current whereabouts are unknown.
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Officers had Abdeslam in their grasp when they stopped the vehicle carrying him and two other men near the Belgian border. Police arrested three suspects in the area Saturday and continued house searches.
Abdeslam is one of three brothers suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks.
“Those who organised, who perpetrated the attacks are the very same people who the refugees are fleeing and not the opposite”, he said. Abdelhamid Abaoud, 27, lived in the Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels, as did two of the attackers, and is now believed to be based in Syria, where he has risen through the IS ranks.
Before the Paris attacks, France and its allies had tried to target a prominent ISIS member who is believed to have planned the assault on the French capital, a French source close to the investigation said.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins announced in a Saturday evening news conference that identical explosive vests were worn by the seven suicide bombers involved in the attacks at six locations around the city, according to Fox News.
A huge security operation continues in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek as police hunt for Salah Abdeslam, 26, who rented a auto used to carry gunmen to the Bataclan.
None of the individuals identified so far in the Paris attacks has been on any USA watch lists, multiple US officials told CNN, raising questions about how effectively the USA and its allies are able to track foreign fighters traveling to Syria and Iraq.
Le Monde reported that Hadfi is the 20-year-old French citizen living in Belgium whom the Paris prosecutor’s office described but didn’t identify by name.
Over 500 Belgian nationals have left to fight in Syria, according to a Belgian database.
But a USA official said Sunday that investigators now believe the attackers’ evident weaponry skills suggest they got advance training somewhere. The official did not identify the attackers.
Three teams of attackers including seven suicide bombers attacked the national stadium, the concert hall and nearby nightspots Friday. One police official said the Seat dropped off the brother of Abdelslam who blew himself up at Au Comptoir Voltaire restaurant. We found out about it from the television as many of you did.
France stepped up its investigation into the country’s worst-ever terror attacks that killed at least 129 people and security forces launched a series of dawn raids targeting scores of homes.
The possible link to the new Paris attacks raises fresh fears that Belgium is becoming a hotbed of militancy, coming just months after connections emerged to the Charlie Hebdo attacks and August’s attempted attack on an Amsterdam-Paris train.
The defense minister said 128 nationwide raids were conducted overnight, a day after a few 170 raids yielded a rocket launcher and several arrests.
Belgian authorities suspect him of also helping organize and finance a terror cell in the eastern city of Verviers that was broken up in an armed police raid on January 15, in which two of his presumed accomplices were killed.
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Another brother, Mohammed Abdeslam, spoke to CNN affiliate BFMTV after his release from custody, saying his parents were in shock.
