Spanish terror plot: Sagrada Familia was intended target of far bigger attack
Spanish police yesterday identified Moroccan Younes Abouyaaqoub as the leader of the terrorist van attack that killed 13 people and injured more than 100 in Barcelona.
But they say his ambitions were much bigger.
The 12-man terror cell he led had collected more than 100 butane gas canisters at their hideout villa in Alcanar, 257 kilometres south of the city.
Security officials believe the cell members were going to fill a van with the cylinders and plough their van through crowds at Sagrada Familia, the unfinished masterpiece by the celebrated Catalonian architect Antoni Gaudi, which attracts millions of tourists to Barcelona every year.
They hoped to also destroy the attraction.
But they were foiled by an explosion that flattened their hideout house shortly before midnight on Wednesday, the day before the atrocities in Barcelona and Cambrils, a quiet family seaside resort further south. One woman was killed and six people injured in that attack.
“The explosion in Alcanar meant they no longer had the necessary material to plan larger-scale attacks in Barcelona,” said Josep Luis Trapero, a Catalan police major.
With so much of their material gone, the plotters had to scale down their plans. Driving a van and an Audi car into crowds was Plan B. A second van has been recovered in Vic, a Barcelona suburb.
The French police are looking for the driver of another vehicle, a Renault Kangoo van, which may have been driven over the border.
Investigations are now centred on determining whether there were any high-grade explosives at the Alcanar villa, where one or two of the occupants were killed.
Paul Cruickshank, a US ter-
rorism reporter, said initial tests found traces of triacetone triperoxide, a homemade mix of acetone and hydrogen peroxide, in the rubble of the building.
The chemical was also found in bomb factories linked to last year’s attacks in Brussels and the Manchester bombing in May this year.
Alcanar officials said the plotters had been living illegally in the complex, which was unoccupied after being repossessed by the bank. They reportedly failed in an attempt to hire a large lorry that would have carried the explosives.
Police said they had “practically broken up” the network of ISIL sympathisers led by Abouyaaqoub, 22, who is still on the run.
It is believed they were inspired by the London Bridge assault in June. The suspects who were shot in Cambrils had, like the London terrorists, worn fake suicide belts to try to prevent bystanders disrupting their rampage.
On Friday the police circulated details to officials of four men they were looking for: Moussa Oukabir, 17, Said Aallaa, 18, Mohamed Hychami, 24 and Abouyaaqoub. The other three were among the five later shot dead by police in Cambrils, 120 kilometres away.
Oukabir was the first suspected ringleader, after he used his brother’s identity cards to rent the van used in the attack on Las Ramblas, Barcelona.
He has been traced to an extremist post on a website that read: “Kill all infidels and only allow Muslims to continue the religion.”
Oukabir’s brother, Driss, has been arrested after turning himself in and is one of four in custody. Three are Moroccan and the fourth is a citizen of Melila, a town on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco but which is Spanish territory.
The oldest is 34, the youngest is 21 and the police say none has a history of terrorism-related activities. Photographs released by the police show strikingly youthful, smooth-faced, mainly Moroccan men.
The Barcelona attack has reinforced the perception that Europe faces a rising challenge from foreign-trained fighters and those radicalised since the Syrian conflict erupted.
Ben Wallace, the British security minister, said there was a twofold source of terror related to ISIL and its shrinking territory in Iraq and Syria.
“I think the threat is increasing, partly driven by the fact that ISIL is collapsing in Syria and people are either unable to get out there to fight, so they look to do something at home,” Mr Wallace said.
“Or also because people have come back and tried to inspire people.”
Little information has been released on Abouyaaqoub, who is believed to have fled the scene at Las Ramblas. Police are investigating whether he hijacked a Ford Focus just over 3km away and left the owner for dead. Officers fired at the car when it failed to stop at a roadblock.
Abouyaaqoub lived in Ripoll, the Catalan town close to the French border, which was home to five of the 12, including Oukabir.
ISIL claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were a response “to calls targeting coalition states”. Spain has hundreds of soldiers in Iraq training local forces.