Belgium detains two in Paris attacks probe

Belgian authorities investigating their country's links to last month's attacks in Paris have searched a house in Brussels and detained two unidentified people for questioning.

Special forces and federal police were involved in a raid which lasted around five hours on Sunday evening and took place close to the city's popular tourist area, authorities said.

"They have been taken in for questioning," Eric Van Der Sypt, spokesman for the federal prosecutor, said of the men, but gave no further details about them.

However he confirmed the detained suspects did not include fugitive Salah Abdeslam, who is one of Europe's most wanted men over his alleged involvement in the November 13 attacks that left 130 dead in the French capital, according to AFP.

The spokesman said details about the Sunday search will be provided on Monday

The building of interest is located between the center of the Belgian capital and the Molenbeek district where some of the perpetrators of the attacks, included suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, had lived. He was killed in an apartment building targeted in a chaotic raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis early on Nov. 18.

Van der Sypt declined to provide details of the search or the person detained on Sunday, but said authorities are still trying to establish what connection they may have to the Paris. 

Pedestrians were evacuated as the raid took place, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. local time, AFP reported.

Belgian police are still actively looking for 26-year-old, Brussels-born Abdeslam, suspected of having played a key role in the Paris attacks and understood to have returned to the Belgian capital the day after the bloodshed.

An international arrest warrant is out on Abdeslam, who lived in Molenbeek.

Molenbeek has long provided a haven for aspiring and returning foreign fighters. City officials have long ignored the suburb, leaving some returning fighters free of significant surveillance, a government official who requested anonymity told Al Jazeera. He added that in some pockets of Molenbeek more than 80 percent of the population is Muslim, and many live near or below the poverty line.

Al Jazeera with wire services