Authorities: Suspects were in France before Spain attacks

MADRID — Some of the Spain terror suspects spent a night in France a week before the fatal attacks in and near Barcelona, French authorities said Wednesday as police in Spain revealed they found a suicide bomb belt in the house where the attackers tried to make explosives.

An Audi A3 car observed Aug. 11-Aug. 12 in France is the same one involved in the attack carried out in the town of Cambrils in the early hours of Aug. 18, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said. A woman was killed there, and police fatally shot five suspects.

In Spain, police disclosed that a belt charged with explosives was among the evidence discovered in the rubble of the house south of Barcelona. An explosion there on the eve of the deadly Barcelona van attack derailed the suspects' initial plans to bomb city sites, according to court documents.

Six of the attackers shot dead by police — the five in Cambrils and one Monday — were wearing fake suicide belts.

Thirteen people were killed Thursday when a van zig-zagged through Barcelona’s Las Ramblas promenade. A 14th was stabbed to death by the van’s driver as he made his getaway. A 15th victim was killed when the Cambrils attackers drove the Audi onto a pedestrian path.

Meanwhile, police in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam detained the driver of a van with Spanish license plates and a number of gas tanks inside after a concert by Los Angeles band AllahLas was canceled Wednesday following a threat.

A counterterrorism official later said the driver is not connected to the vehicle attacks in Spain.