PARIS — A police counterterrorism raid in Brussels linked to the Paris attacks turned into a chaotic shootout on Tuesday, leaving one suspect dead clutching an assault rifle, at least one other on the run, four officers wounded and an entire neighborhood in a traumatized lockdown. A spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, Eric Van Der Sijpt, said many residents of the apartment building targeted in the raid had fled. He could not say how many suspects were involved. Confusion and conflicting reports over the number of people killed and wounded in the shootout prevailed in the hours after the raid, which started between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. in a section of Brussels known as Forest and involved both Belgian and French officers. Television coverage showed dozens of officers and police vehicles converging on the neighborhood. Prime Minister Charles Michel said at a news conference Tuesday evening in Brussels that police operations were still continuing. Brussels was the hub of the plotters who carried out the meticulously coordinated Paris attacks on Nov. 13, which killed 130 people and injured 413. Mr. Van Der Sijpt confirmed that one suspect in the Forest raid had been killed and had been found with a Kalashnikov rifle in his hands. He did not identify him. The spokesman said there were several exchanges of gunfire, one at the start of the search. The suspects had been “waiting behind the door,” he said, shooting at the police through it.Three people were injured during that exchange: one French policewoman and two Belgian policemen. Another officer was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with special forces later, Mr. Van Der Sijpt said. The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, told reporters that French officers also came under fire during the raid. He spoke at a news conference in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where he had traveled with the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, to express solidarity after a series of deadly attacks on three resort hotels there on Sunday. Since the Paris attacks, French police officers have routinely been working alongside their counterparts in Belgium in the investigation. Live television broadcasts showed dozens of police officers and several police cars descending on the Forest neighborhood. Gunfire erupted sporadically throughout the afternoon. Helicopters circled the area, and some police officers were seen on nearby roofs. The Forest neighborhood, also known by its Dutch name, Vorst, is southwest of the city center. The police evacuated homes in the area, as well as two schools near the building where the raid occurred. Employees from the car manufacturer Audi, which has a building a few blocks away from the house in Forest, were told to stay inside. Marc-Jean Ghyssels, the mayor of Forest, one of 19 municipalities that make up Brussels, told reporters that a police operation was proceeding around a building on the Rue du Dries, one of the streets cordoned off by the police. One man believed to have participated in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, has been the target of an international manhunt. Mr. Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French citizen who was born in Brussels to parents who had emigrated from Morocco, fled to Belgium after the attacks. On Dec. 10, the police raided an apartment in the Schaerbeek section of Brussels, where they found Mr. Abdeslam’s fingerprint, as well as material that might have been used to assemble suicide belts and traces of an explosive used in the Paris attacks. The other nine men believed to have taken part in the attacks all died. Eight of them ether blew themselves up or were shot on the night of the attacks, while an organizer of the plot, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, died in a police raid north of Paris on Nov. 18. The authorities in Belgium and France have carried out hundreds of raids, and held dozens of suspects for questioning, in the aftermath of the attacks. There was no indication that the raid on Tuesday was directly related to the search for Mr. Abdeslam, the fugitive.

• published: 16 Mar 2016
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