Terror strikes streets of Barcelona
13 dead and 100 injured as van runs down pedestrians on crowded city boulevard
A van veered onto a sidewalk and barreled down a busy pedestrian zone Thursday in Barcelona’s picturesque Las Ramblas district, swerving from side to side as it mowed down tourists and residents and turned the popular European vacation promenade into a bloody killing zone. Thirteen people were killed and 100 were injured, 15 of them seriously, in what authorities called a terror attack.
Victims were left sprawled in
the street, spattered with blood or crippled by broken limbs. Others fled in panic, screaming or carrying young children in their arms.
“It was clearly a terror attack, intended to kill as many people as possible,” Josep Lluis Trapero, senior police official, told a news conference late Thursday.
Late Thursday, police reported they shot and killed several people south of Barcelona while carrying out an operation in response to a terrorist attack.
The regional police for the Catalonia region said on Twitter early Friday that officers are in Cambrils, a seaside resort town about 62 miles from Barcelona.
They called on people in the town not to go out on the streets.
Spain’s public broadcaster, RTVE, reported that regional police troopers killed four people and injured another.
The broadcaster says police suspected they were planning an attack in Cambrils just hours after the attack in Barcelona.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the van attack, saying in a statement on its Aamaq news agency that the attack was carried out by “soldiers of the Islamic State” in response to the extremist group’s calls for followers to target countries participating in the coalition trying to drive it from Syria and Iraq.
Authorities said a Belgian was among the dead and a Greek woman was among the injured. Germany’s Foreign Ministry said it was checking reports that Germans were among the victims.
After the afternoon attack, Las Ramblas went into lockdown. Swarms of police brandishing hand guns and automatic weapons launched a manhunt in the downtown district, ordering stores and cafes and public transport to shut down.
Several hours later authorities reported two arrests, one a Spanish national from Melilla, a Spanish- run Mediterranean seafront enclave in North Africa, and the other a Moroccan.
But Trapero said neither of them was the van’s driver. The arrests took place in the northern Catalan town of Ripoll and in Alcanar, the site of a gas explosion at a house on Wednesday night. Police said they were investigating a possible link to Thursday’s attack.
Barcelona is the latest European city to experience a terror attack using a vehicle as a weapon to target a popular tourist destination, after similar attacks in France and Britain.
Thursday’s bloodshed was the country’s deadliest attack since 2004, when alQaida-inspired bombers killed 192 people in coordinated assaults on Madrid’s commuter trains. In the years since, Spanish authorities have arrested nearly 200 jihadists, but the only deadly attacks were bombings claimed by the Basque separatist group ETA that killed five people over the past decade.
Hours after Thursday’s attack, the police force for Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region said that troopers searching for the perpetrators shot and killed a man who was in a car that hit two officers at a traffic blockade on the outskirts of Barcelona, but Trapero said it was not linked to the van attack.
Las Ramblas is a wide avenue of stalls and shops that cuts through the center of Barcelona and is one of the city’s top tourist destinations. It features a pedestrian- only walkway in the center while cars can travel on either side.
A taxi driver who witnessed Thursday’s attack, Oscar Cano, said the white van suddenly jumped the curb and sped down the central pedestrian area at a high speed for about 500 yards, veering from side to side as it targeted people.
“I heard a lot of people screaming and then I saw the van going down the boulevard,” another witness, Miguel Angel Rizo, told The Associated Press. “You could see all the bodies lying through Las Ramblas. It was brutal. A very tough image to see.”
Andrew Roby, 35, a tourist visiting from Washington, told The Washington Post he saw a small white van that had plowed into pedestrians on the busy central street, lined with bars, cafes and shops. “All of sudden, everyone started running, so we ran, too.”
Roby said he saw several people, apparently wounded, lying in front of and beside the van. “We saw people on the ground. … I heard a bunch of people screaming.” Tom Markwell, another American tourist, told the BBC that he saw a white van “going entirely too fast. It looked to me as if he was going left to right, hitting people with the little stand. … All of a sudden, people were just screaming and running.”
Carol Augustin, a manager at La Palau Moja, an 18th-century former palace on Las Ramblas that now houses offices and a tourism center, said the van passed right in front of the building.
“People started screaming and running into the office. It was such a chaotic situation. There were families with children. The police made us close the doors and wait inside,” she said.
Men’s basketball teams from several U. S. universities, including Oregon State, Clemson and Arizona, were in Barcelona when the attacks happened but school officials said the players and staff were safe.
Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle posted a somber video to social media that conveyed the gravity of what had taken place just outside the Beavers’ team hotel. Players were sharing a meal before an exhibition game when the incident occurred, about 5 p.m. local time, he said.
“People, mad scramble, a car/van driving through,” Tinkle said. “Literally looking out the window, we won’t show you the pictures, but some horrific sights.”
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau announced a minute of silence to be held Friday in Barcelona’s main square “to show that we are not scared.” The regional government announced three days of mourning.
President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter: “The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help. Be tough & strong, we love you!”