Manhunt on for suspect in Barcelona carnage
BARCELONA: Spanish police expanded a manhunt on Saturday for a Moroccan national believed to be one of the perpetrators of twin terror attacks in Barcelona and another seaside resort that killed 14 and wounded around 100.
With the country in shock after the carnage which saw two men deliberately ploughing vehicles into crowds of pedestrians, Madrid mulled raising the terror alert to the maximum.
With investigators working round the clock to identify the network behind the bloodshed, police said they were hunting for 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub without confirming reports he was the driver who ploughed a van into pedestrians in Barcelona on Thursday.
Investigators meanwhile were working furiously to unravel the terror cell of at least 12 young men — some of them teenagers — behind the Barcelona rampage and a second ramming attack with a car in Cambrils.
The two attacks were claimed by the Islamic State.
Police have also identified another three suspects linked to the attacks, two of whom are thought to have died in a blast on Wednesday as they tried to make explosives at a house in Alcanar, a town 200 km south of Barcelona.
As the hunt for Abouyaaqoub gathers pace, Spanish police tipped off their French counterparts about a white van linked to the attacks that may have crossed the border.
SUSPECTS’ FATHER ‘IN SHOCK’ OVER NEWS
Police in Catalonia said three of the suspects shot dead in Cambrils were Moroccan nationals, identifying them as Moussa Oukabir, 17, Said Aallaa, 18, and Mohamed Hychami, 24.
Moussa’s brother Driss is one of the four arrested.
In Morocco, their father Said was in shock, with tears in his eyes when he was told of the news while at a wedding. “We’re under shock, completely devastated,” he told AFP, saying Moussa had been studying “normally” at school while Driss worked “honestly”. “I hope they will say he’s innocent... I don’t want to lose my two sons.”
BIGGER PLANS
Police said they believed the suspects were planning a larger attack.But they appear to have made mistakes, accidentally detonating Wednesday’s explosion.
“They were preparing one or several attacks in Barcelona, and an explosion in Alcanar stopped this as they no longer had the material they needed for an even bigger attack,” said Josep Lluis Trapero of Catalonia’s police.