Spain warned in May of Las Ramblas terror

SPAIN received a warning in May about a possible terrorist attack in Barcelona but decided it lacked credibility, Catalan authorities said yesterday.

But Joaquim Forn, Catalonia’s interior minister, denied news reports that the warning had come from US security agencies.

El Periódico newspaper reported that the US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which coordinates the CIA and other intelligence agencies, had alerted Spanish intelligence and police forces on May 25 that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) was planning “to conduct unspecified terrorist attacks during the summer against crowded tourist sites in Barcelona, Spain specifically La Rambla street”.

Mr Forn, who described the published memo as “a montage”, and accused El Periódico of attempting to discredit the Catalan police force for political reasons, said that the warning had not come from US intelligence, but from “other sources”.

There is “absolutely no link between this information” and the van attack in Barcelona on August 17 that killed 14 people, he said. Josep Lluis Trapero, the head of Catalonia’s regional police, said the warning did not come from the CIA or the NCTC, and said that “on analysis, the reliability was deemed to be very low”.

The Spanish government has yet to make any formal comment on the matter. The US embassy in Madrid said it could not comment on intelligence issues.

After the Aug 17 van attack one other person was stabbed to death by a terrrorist as he fled. Another attack in nearby Cambrils a day later left one dead.