Brussels gunman lockdown 'not terror related'

Belgian police say an incident involving a suspected armed man in Brussels is not terror-related.

Police spokeswoman Kathleen Calie said officers from Belgium’s special federal force were deployed to the Forest suburb following witness accounts that an armed person could be at large.

A search of one building produced nothing, and a second search is ongoing.

Ms Calie said “we can rule out terrorism.”

Belgian police sealed off parts of the suburb in a major security operation involving specialist armed units after a report of a possible murder.

Residents were warned to stay inside as armed police officers were pictured hiding behind buildings and staking out a building rooftop in the Forest neighbourhood of the Belgian capital.

Masked police, some with automatic weapons, were aiming their guns high at a building near the Place Saint-Denis. A police helicopter flew overhead.

The spokeswoman said that the special units of the federal police had been deployed after a Polish man reported that someone had been murdered in the morning.

“They are searching the buildings but we can say there has not been any terrorist attack,” she said.

The area’s mayor Marc-Jean Ghyssels said that police “suspect the presence of an armed man.”

A suspect in the deadly Paris attacks in November 2015, Salah Abdeslam, hid in Forest and was caught up in a shootout with police in a nearby apartment.

There was no immediate indication that Thursday’s incident is terror-related.