Knifeman shot dead in terror attack on police station

SECURITY forces in Barcelona are investigating a terrorist attack after shooting dead a man who entered a police station and shouted “Allahu akbar” as he charged at an officer with a knife.

Police cordoned off streets surrounding the man’s home in a suburb of Barcelona after he was shot by a female officer early yesterday.

Police ordered security measures to be reinforced following the attempted assault, which came three days after the anniversary of the twin terror attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils. “The intent was to kill members of our force,” said Rafel Comes, a police chief. “We are treating it as a terrorist attack”.

Police have not linked the cell that carried out last year’s attacks and the assailant, Abdelouahab Taib, a 29-yearold of Algerian origin who was carrying a national identity card and did not have a criminal record.

Police said the man approached the station shortly before 6am and, finding the door closed, rang on the intercom demanding to enter “in an insistent manner”. When the door was opened, the attacker launched himself upon officers “with a clearly homicidal intent, mentioning Allah and other unidentifiable expressions”, Commissioner Comes said.

The officer then opened fire and shot dead the man, who was armed with a knife “of large dimensions”.

It was reported that Taib had last week separated from his wife, a 40-year-old Spanish woman. The Barcelona-based daily El Periodico said the pair married after meeting two years ago and his wife, named only as Lucy, converted to Islam.

Sources close to the couple said they had separated because Taib had “lost his head”, and that it had been agreed he would move out of the family home at the end of August.

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