Just 18 – and most wanted in Europe
Van and car plough into crowds of tourists in two cities
A pedestrian avenue and a coastal resort, both teeming with tourists, became scenes of carnage after a dual terror attack in Barcelona left 14 dead and more than 100 injured. A van ploughed through the Las Ramblas tourist strip hours before a car rammed into pedestrians in the seaside town of Cambrils. Police killed five attackers, arrested four people and launched a manhunt throughout Europe for the suspected van driver, 18-year-old Moussa Oukabir. There was more terror, with suspected bombers arrested 200km away and a man going on a stabbing spree in Finland.
We were on the city tour bus, 20ft from the accident when it happened. We heard the van and the impact with people and then we saw people running.
Alex Luque
BARCELONA: Spanish police are hunting the driver who ploughed a van into crowds of pedestrians on a busy avenue in Barcelona, just hours before a second such assault hit a nearby resort, in twin attacks that left 14 dead and over 100 injured.
Police said they killed five “suspected terrorists” during the night and three others were arrested as Spain reeled from the double tragedy in Barcelona and in Cambrils, some 120km south.
Police said one of the arrested suspects was a Spaniard born in Melilla, a Spanish territory in North Africa, and the other a Moroccan named as Driss Oukabir.
But the driver responsible for the carnage in Spain’s second largest city remained at large, authorities warned, while police said they believed the two attacks were connected.
Although police have not named the suspected driver, it was widely reported that he is Moussa Oukabir, 18 – Driss’ brother.
In a poignant moment yesterday, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, King Felipe VI and the president of Catalonia where both places are located held a minute of silence in Barcelona that was followed by applause and shouts of “not afraid.”
Both attacks followed the same modus operandi, with drivers deliberately targeting pedestrians with their vehicles, slamming them to the ground or sending them flying in the latest such assault in Europe where cars and vans have been used as weapons of terror before.
Javier Zaragoza, a prosecutor advising the attorney general in terrorism matters, said the attacks were most likely the work of an organised “cell”.
Otso Iho of Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre added there appeared to be “a much higher level of coordination than has been typically present in previous attacks.”
In an additional twist, police said an explosion in a house in another part of Catalonia Wednesday evening was potentially linked to the attacks, believing those inside “were preparing an explosive device.”
As world leaders united in condemning the violence, the Islamic State group propaganda agency Amaq claimed one of its “soldiers” carried out the rampage in Barcelona.
In the Barcelona incident, a white van sped down the popular Las Ramblas avenue packed full of tourists on Thursday afternoon, knocking people down and killing 13 in a scene of chaos and horror.
The driver left the vehicle on the busy boulevard lined with shops and restaurants, and fled on foot.
Witnesses recounted how the van pushed through the crowd, leaving bodies strewn along the boulevard as other people fled for their lives, screaming in panic in scenes of chaos and confusion.
“We were on the city tour bus, 20ft from the accident when it happened. We heard the
van and the impact with people and then we saw people running,” said Alex Luque, a 19-year-old student from New York.
“We got separated from my grandparents and I had to take my sister to try and find safety,” he said yesterday, adding that he had since been reunited with his relatives.
Then just eight hours later attackers struck again yesterday morning, this time in the seaside resort of Cambrils where an Audi A3 car rammed into pedestrians, injuring six civilians and a police officer. One of the civilians later died.
Gunfire ensued during which police killed the five attackers.
Markel Artabe, a 20-year-old restaurant worker, said he was on the seaside promenade when he heard what he initially thought were fireworks, but soon realised were gunshots.
He said he saw a person lying on the floor “with a gunshot in the head. His friends were crying out for help”.
Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s president, warned that the suspect still on the run was potentially dangerous, saying “these types of peo- ple have already demonstrated they have the will to harm whatever happens”.
There were at least 34 nationalities among the dead and injured, who came from countries as varied as France, Venezuela, Australia, Ireland, Peru, Algeria and China, according to Spain’s civil protection agency.
At least two Italians were among the dead, according to the foreign ministry in Rome and the employer of one of the victims, while Belgium said one Belgian national died.
“We’re united in grief,” Rajoy said on Thursday in a televised address after rushing to Barcelona, the biggest city in Catalonia, a region in Spain’s northeast whose separatist government is defying Madrid with a drive for independence.
Spain, the world’s third most popular tourism destination, had until now been spared the recent extremist attacks that have rocked nearby France, Belgium and Germany.
It had even seen a surge in tour- ists as visitors fled other restive sunshine destinations like Tunisia and Egypt.
But it is nevertheless no stranger to militant attacks, having been hit by what is still Europe’s deadliest in March 2004, when bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people in an attack claimed by al-Qaeda-inspired extremists.
It also had to deal with a decades-long campaign of violence waged by Basque separatist group ETA, which only declared a cease- fire in 2011.
This is believed to be the first IS claim of an attack in Spain.
Catalonia is believed to have the highest concentration of radicalised extremists in the country, along with Madrid and the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla that border Morocco.