TERROR IN SPAIN
Thirteen dead, 80 injured as driver rams van into crowd on teeming Spanish street
AT least 13 people were killed yesterday when a driver deliberately slammed a van into crowds on Barcelona’s most popular street in what police said was a terror attack. The attack, the latest in a wave of vehicle rammings across Europe in recent years, caused panic on the streets of Spain’s largest city and drew condemnation from world leaders.
The head of the Spanish region of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, said at least 80 people had been taken to hospital.
Catalan police said they had arrested two people but it was not clear yet how many attackers had been involved.
Witnesses said the white van had zig-zagged at high speed down the famous Las Ramblas, one of Barcelona’s busiest streets, lined with shops and restaurants and normally thronged with tourists and street performers until well into the night.
Spain’s royal family condemned the assault in unusually strong terms, vowing that their country would not be terrorised by extremists.
Witnesses spoke of a scene of carnage, with bodies strewn along the boulevard as others fled for their lives.
“When it happened I ran out and saw the damage,” shop worker Xavi Perez said.
“There were bodies on the ground with people crowding around them. People were crying. There were lots of foreigners.”
Aamer Anwar told Britain’s Sky News television that he was walking down Las Ramblas, which he described as jam-packed with tourists.
“All of a sudden, I just sort of heard a crashing noise and the whole street [of people] just started to run, screaming.
“I saw a woman right next to me screaming for her kids.”
Spain had so far been spared the kind of extremist violence that rocked nearby France, Belgium and Germany.
But it was hit by what is still Europe’s deadliest jihadist attack in March 2004, when bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people in an attack claimed by al-Qaeda-inspired extremists.
Ethan Spibey, a charity director on holiday in the city, said he and several others had locked themselves in a nearby church after yesterday’s van ramming. “All of a sudden, it was real kind of chaos . . . people just started running, screaming,” he told Sky. “There was kind of a mini-stampede.”
Tom Gueller, who lives on a road next to Las Ramblas, said he saw the van speeding along the boulevard.
“It wasn’t slowing down at all. It was just going straight through the middle of the crowds in the middle of the Ramblas,” he said.
A Greek diplomat in the city said three nationals had been wounded -- a woman and two children -- without providing details.
A Belgian woman was among the dead.
Yesterday’s attack, which followed similar incidents in Britain, Germany and France, drew widespread condemnation.
“The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help,” US President Donald Trump tweeted.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron -- whose country witnessed a similar horror when a Tunisian man ploughed a 19-ton truck through a crowded boulevard in Nice, killing 86 people in July last year -- said his thoughts were with the victims of the tragic attack.
A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the “revolting attack” and British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Twitter that London “stands with Spain against terror”.
The Nice carnage and other assaults, including the 2015 Paris attacks, were claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.
In another deadly vehicle attack in December, 12 people were killed when a man driving a truck ploughed into a crowd at a Berlin Christmas market.
Spain has emerged as a potential target for jihadists, with extremist websites mentioning it for historical reasons, since much of its territory was once under Muslim rule.