Van attack kills 13 in Barcelona ISIL CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY AS TOURIST AREA BECOMES ‘BRUTAL’ KILLING ZONE
Avan veered onto a sidewalk and barrelled down a busy pedestrian zone Thursday in Barcelona’s picturesque Las Ramblas district, swerving from side to side as it mowed down tourists and residents and turned the popular European vacation promenade into a bloody killing zone.
In what authorities called a terror attack, 13 people were killed and 100 were injured, 15 of them seriously,
Victims were left sprawled in the street, spattered with blood or crippled by broken limbs. Others fled in panic, screaming or carrying young children in their arms.
“It was clearly a terror attack, intended to kill as many people as possible,” Josep Lluis Trapero, senior police official, told a news conference late Thursday.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, saying in a statement on its Aamaq news agency that the attack was carried out by “soldiers of the Islamic State” in response to the extremist group’s calls for followers to target countries participating in the coalition trying to drive it from Syria and Iraq.
Authorities said a Belgian was among the dead and a Greek woman was among the injured.
After the afternoon attack, Las Ramblas went into lockdown. Swarms of police brandishing hand guns and automatic weapons launched a manhunt in the downtown district, ordering stores and cafes and public transport to shut down.
Several hours later authorities reported two arrests, one a Spanish national from Melilla, a Spanish-run Mediterranean seafront enclave in North Africa, and the other a Moroccan.
But Trapero said neither of them was the van’s driver. The arrests took place in the northern Catalan town of Ripoll and in Alcanar, the site of a gas explosion at a house on Wednesday night. Police said they were investigating a possible link to Thursday’s attack.
A taxi driver who witnessed Thursday’s attack, Oscar Cano, said the white van suddenly jumped the curb and sped down the central pedestrian area at a high speed for about 500 yards, veering from side to side as it targeted people.
“I heard a lot of people screaming and then I saw the van going down the boulevard,” witness Miguel Angel Rizo said. “You could see all the bodies lying through Las Ramblas. It was brutal.”
Barcelona is the latest European city to experience a terror attack using a vehicle as a weapon to target a popular tourist destination, after similar attacks in France and Britain.
Thursday’s bloodshed was the country’s deadliest attack since 2004, when al-Qaida-inspired bombers killed 192 people in co-ordinated assaults on Madrid’s commuter trains. In the years since, Spanish authorities have arrested nearly 200 jihadists, but the only deadly attacks were bombings claimed by the Basque separatist group ETA that killed five people over the past decade.
Hours after Thursday’s attack, the police force for Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region said that troopers searching for the perpetrators shot and killed a man who was in a car that hit two officers at a traffic blockade on the outskirts of Barcelona.
But Trapero said it was not linked to the van attack.
Las Ramblas is a wide avenue of stalls and shops that cuts through the centre of Barcelona and is one of the city’s top tourist destinations. It features a pedestrian-only walkway in the centre while cars can travel on either side.
Jordi Laparra, a 55-yearold physical education teacher and Barcelona resident, said it initially looked like a terrible traffic accident.
“At first I thought it was an accident, as the van crashed into 10 people or so and seemed to get stuck. But then he manoeuvred left and accelerated full speed down the Ramblas and I realized it was a terrorist attack. He zigzagged from side to side into the kiosks, pinning as many people as he could, so they had no escape,” Laparra said.
Carol Augustin, a manager at La Palau Moja, an 18th-century former palace on Las Ramblas that now houses offices and a tourism centre, said the van passed right in front of the building.
“People started screaming and running into the office. It was such a chaotic situation. There were families with children. The police made us close the doors and wait inside,” she said.
Tamara Jurgen, a visitor from the Netherlands who arrived in Barcelona hours before the attack, said she and a friend were inside a clothing store steps from the scene. They were held inside until police swept the block.
“We were downstairs when it happened and everyone was screaming and running. We had to run up to the roof and throw our bags over a wall,” Jurgen said. “We were all together along this wall and we were scared we were going to have to jump.”
Quentin Ogilvie of Calgary has been in Barcelona for the past two months and was in his apartment overlooking Las Ramblas when the attack occurred. He rushed to the window when he heard screaming.
“I walk down that street so often, I easily could have been there when it happened. It’s kind of freaky,” said Ogilvie.
“Who knows, but my decision to buy groceries yesterday instead of today might have saved me.”
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau announced a minute of silence to be held Friday in Barcelona’s main square “to show that we are not scared.” The regional government announced three days of mourning.