BRUSSELS ‘MAN IN HAT’ CAPTURED.

BRUSSELS • A fugitive suspect in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks was arrested Friday in Belgium after a raid that authorities said was linked to the deadly March 22 Brussels bombings.

The suspect, Mohamed Abrini, is believed to be the mysterious “man in the hat” who escaped the double bombing at the Zaventem airport, according to a French police official. If true, that would mean Abrini had a key role in both attacks carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant cell that left a total of 162 people dead — 130 in Paris and 32 in Brussels.

Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to offer details about the ongoing Belgian investigation, which has also involved French anti-terror police.

Friday’s arrest of at least two people came a day after Belgian authorities released photos and video of the airport suspect.

The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office confirmed “several arrests” but refused to provide more information.

Abrini was the last identified suspect still at large from the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, although his precise role has never been clear. He is a 31-year-old Belgian-Moroccan petty criminal believed to have travelled last summer to Syria where his younger brother died in 2014 in ISIL’s notorious francophone brigade.

He has not resurfaced since the emergence of surveillance video placing him in the convoy with the attackers headed to Paris. He had ties to Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the ringleader of the Paris attacks who died in a police standoff on Nov. 18, and is a childhood friend of brothers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam.

He went multiple times to Birmingham, England, last year, meeting with several men suspected of terrorist activity, a European security official has said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. He said the meetings, including one later last summer, took place in several locations, including cafés and apartments.

He was travelling with Salah Abdeslam, who is in jail in Belgium for involvement in the Paris attacks, in the convoy headed to Paris during the 36 hours leading up to the attacks.

The man in the hat was with the two suicide bombers who killed 16 people at Brussels airport on March 22. A second arrest could also be linked to the Maelbeek subway bombing that killed another 16 people during rush hour that morning.

On Thursday, authorities released photos and video of a man wearing a dark hat, leaving the airport on foot, walking to the nearby town of Zaventem and then into Brussels, where all traces of him were lost.

The appeal for public assistance more than two weeks after the suicide bombings indicates that investigators were at a standstill.