Belgium detains five in Paris attacks probe

Belgian authorities have detained 5 people, including two brothers, after two days of raids related last month’s attacks in Paris.

The federal prosecutor's office said two people were detained following a house search Monday in the Laeken district of Brussels. On Sunday evening, another Brussels house was searched on orders from an investigating judge specializing in terrorism. Two brothers found there were taken in for questioning, as well as a friend.

The prosecutor's office said an analysis of phone records led to Sunday's search. Authorities said they found no weapons or explosives at either residence, and did not identify those detained.

According to Agence-France Presse, Eric Van Der Sypt, spokesperson for the federal prosecutor, 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 Nov. 13 attacks that left 130 dead in the French capital.

The spokesman said details about the Sunday search would be provided 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 were 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