Charles Michel described the capture of 26-year-old French suspect Salah Abdeslam and two others as "a very important result in the battle for democracy". French President Francois Hollande said he was confident they had links to Syria and to Islamic State which claimed the attacks that killed 130 people.
"The threat level is very high," said Hollande, who was in Brussels for an EU summit. He added that it was now clear many more people had been involved in the Paris attacks on a sports stadium, bars and cafes and concert hall than had been realised.
Michel said Abdeslam was wounded — local media said he was shot in the leg — in the operation launched as EU leaders met on the other side of the city to discuss Europe's migration crisis. U.S. President Barack Obama sent his congratulations.
Television footage showed armed security forces dragging a man with a sack on his head out of a building and into a car.
"We got him," Belgian government minister Theo Francken said on Twitter.
Hollande said France wanted to extradite Abdeslam, who was born and raised in Brussels to a Moroccan immigrant family, and hoped he would yield more clarity about an operation mounted by Syria-based Islamic State in which all the known attackers died.
Several bursts of gunfire rang out earlier in the capital's Molenbeek area — Abdeslam's home neighbourhood and the scene of past investigations into the Paris attacks and police officers surrounded an apartment block there from around 4 p.m. (1500 GMT).
Reuters
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