Jihadi cell had plotted greater carnage
SPANISH detectives believe the terror cell behind the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks was plotting even greater carnage – using vans packed with gas bombs.
The attack plan had to be scaled back when 20 canisters exploded at the house where they were being stored, it is claimed.
At least one person – possibly a cell member – was killed and 16 injured when the property, in Alcanar, on the Catalan coast, blew up on Wednesday night.
A police source said: “We’re working with the hypothesis that the terrorists had been planning the attacks of Cambrils and Barcelona for a long time from Alcanar.” Details emerged as it became clear that officers are investigating a cell of between eight and 12 jihadis, of North African descent, based in Spain.
The prime suspect in the Barcelona massacre was shot dead by police during the second terror attack in Cambrils.
Moussa Oukabir, the 18-yearold suspected of killing 13 and injuring more than 100 on Las Ramblas, was among the five terrorists killed by police.
Authorities are still believed to be hunting fellow Moroccans Mohamed Hychami, Younes Abouyaaqoub and Said Aallaa.
Moussa hired the white Fiat vehicle used to mow down pedestrians on Las Ramblas on Thursday, using identity documents belonging to his brother.
Drissa Oukabir, 28, was arrested afterwards as he drove to hand himself in to police in Ripoll, a small Catalan town near the French border where the brothers lived.
He claims he approached officers after seeing his photograph on media appeals.
He is now in custody but denies involvement.
Police in Ripoll also arrested a 34-year-old associate of the brothers.
Another detainee was named by sources as Mohamed Houli, 21, who was injured in the Alcanar explosion. Another was the unnamed brother of
the driver at Cambrils. Of the fugitives, Hychami and Abouyaaqoub also live in Ripoll, while Aallaa is from Ribes de Freser, another border town.
Moussa was said yesterday to have spoken on social media of his ambition to “kill the unbelievers and leave only Muslims”.
Cambrils was the spot where Mohamed Atta, operational leader of the 9/11 attacks, reportedly met with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of its planners, ahead of the 2001 outrage.
It also emerged yesterday that Spain’s interior ministry recommended installing barriers on Las Ramblas last year to prevent a vehicle terror attack, but the request was ignored. Meanwhile, Professor Peter Neumann, a terror expert from King’s College, London, told BBC2’s Newsnight that police have feared a jihadist attack in Barcelona for years.
He said: “There was a big plot in 2008 and that really alerted the police there to the possibility that this may happen in Catalonia and they started to prepare themselves and they’ve been kind of expecting this.
“Barcelona has been a centre for jihadist preachers, they’ve attracted their followers.
“It has also been a connecting tissue between France and North Africa, so a lot of people have been travelling through.”
More than 3,000 officers from the security forces are working on anti-terror inquiries.