Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Spain in mourning after attacks
Security forces hunting van’s driver
BARCELONA: Spanish investigators believe a cell of about 12 people might have been involved in the terror attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils.
The investigators think the cell had been planning to use gas canisters in deadly attacks.
Spanish police shot dead five people after confronting them early yesterday in Cambrils, a town south of Barcelona, where hours earlier a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others before fleeing on foot.
Islamic State claimed the perpetrators had been responding to its call for action by carrying out Thursday’s rampage along Barcelona’s most famous avenue, which was thronged with tourists at the peak of the summer season.
Bodies, many motionless, were left strewn across the avenue and authorities said the toll of dead, which included several children, could rise, with more than 100 injured.
The injured and dead came from 34 countries.
Early yesterday, as security forces hunted for the van’s driver, police said they killed the five suspects in Cambrils, 120km south of Barcelona, to thwart another attack.
The five men had attempted to drive into tourists on the Cambrils seafront, police said. Their car overturned and some of them began stabbing people. Four were shot dead at the scene and the fifth was killed a few hundred metres away, police said. Police destroyed explosive belts the men had been wearing, though they turned out to be fake.
Police said they had arrested a Moroccan and a man from Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla. A third man was arrested in the town of Ripoll yesterday. Later, they said they had made a fourth arrest.
A Spanish woman was killed in the Cambrils incident, while several other civilians and a police officer were injured.
Of the 130 people who were injured in both attacks, 17 were in a critical condition and 30 were serious, an emergency services spokesperson said.
Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, a person was killed in an explosion in a house in Alcanar, another town south of Barcelona, police said.
A judicial source said inves- tigators believed a cell of at least eight people, possibly 12, might have been involved in the Barcelona and Cambrils operations and that it had been planning to use gas canisters.
Yesterday, as Spain began three days of mourning, people laid flowers and lit candles in memory of the victims along Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas promenade. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Spain’s King Felipe visited the city’s main square nearby to observe a minute’s silence.
Defiant crowds later chanted, “I am not afraid!”
Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said the attackers had carried out the operation “in response to calls for targeting coalition states” – a reference to a US-led coalition against the Sunni militant group. Spain has several hundred soldiers in Iraq training local forces in the fight against Islamic State.
There was no immediate indication, though, that Islamic State had directed or organised the attack, although some of those responsible for similar attacks in Europe have been inspired by the jihadist group.
Islamist militants have staged several attacks across Europe in the past 13 months, killing over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.
In March 2004, Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people.
Police said the two men detained on Thursday had been arrested in Ripoll and Alcanar, both in the region of Cata- lonia, of which Barcelona is the capital.
A man was also found dead in a car which had driven into a police checkpoint in Barcelona, though the police could not confirm it was connected with the van attack.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking after media reports that some Germans were among those killed, said Islamist terrorism “can never defeat us”.
In December, Berlin suffered a similar attack when a truck ploughed into a crowded Christmas market, killing 12.
Italy said two of its citizens were killed and three injured while Belgium said one Belgian had died. German television channel ZDF reported three Germans among the dead.
France said 26 of its citizens were hurt and 11 of them were in a serious condition. Australia said at least four of its citizens were injured, with broadcaster ABC saying a 7-year-old boy was unaccounted for.
Foreign leaders voiced condemnation and sympathy, including French President Emmanuel Macron, whose nation has suffered some of Europe’s deadliest militant attacks. In a message to the cardinal of Barcelona, Pope Francis said the attack was “an act of blind violence that is a grave offence to the Creator”.
Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said the attack showed the EU’s system of migrant relocation was wrong. “It is dangerous. Europe should wake up. We are dealing here with a clash of civilisations.” – Reuters