Spain hunts terror suspect

> Memorials held for victims of Barcelona carnage

BARCELONA: A grief-stricken Barcelona prepared yesterday to commemorate victims of two devastating terror attacks at a mass in the city’s Sagrada Familia church, as police hunted for a Moroccan man believed to be the driver who mowed down sauntering tourists last week.

As investigators scrambled to piece together the attacks which killed 14, Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said on Saturday the cell behind the carnage that also injured 120 and plunged the country into shock had been “dismantled,” though local authorities took a more cautious tone.

Police said they had cast a dragnet for 22year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, who media reports say was the driver of a van that smashed into people on Barcelona’s busy Las Ramblas boulevard on Thursday.

An extensive operation including roadblocks was deployed across Catalonia on Saturday afternoon, police said, urging people not to disclose information about the checkpoints.

Two days after the assaults that struck the busy tourist hub and the nearby seaside town of Cambrils, Spaniards put on a defiant front while mourning the victims, with crowds out in force to greet King Felipe and Queen Letizia as they arrived to pay homage to the victims.

Slogans like “Las Ramblas is crying but alive” were seen on shop windows, while a convoy of taxis with “We’re not afraid” plastered on their windows sounded their horns.

“People are coming here like they are seeking comfort from others,” said Sergio Lopez, 36, whose family runs a kiosk on the main tourist thoroughfare.

Following the morning mass at Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, nearly 100,000 people were expected at Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium yesterday for their team’s first game of the season, to be marked by a minute of silence.

Hours after the Barcelona carnage, a similar attack struck Cambrils early Friday. Police shot and killed the five attackers in Cambrils, some of whom were wearing fake explosive belts.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, believed to be its first in Spain.

The terror cell in Spain reportedly comprised at least 12 young men, some of them teenagers.

Investigators have been homing in on the small town of Ripoll, at the foot of the Pyrenees, where many of the suspects – including Abouyaaqoub – lived.

On Saturday, police raided the apartment of an imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, according to his flatmate.

But Spanish daily El Pais, quoting police sources, said the imam might have been one of those killed in an explosion in a home in Alcanar, about 200km south of Barcelona, where the alleged jihadists were believed to have been building bombs. – AFP