Barcelona attack: Van driver shot dead by police
Spanish police have shot dead the main suspect in last Thursday's Barcelona attack, Younes Abouyaaqoub.
Police
believe he was the driver of a van which careered down the Las Ramblas
avenue, killing 13 and injuring more than 100 others.
He was killed some 25 miles (40km) west of Barcelona near a sewage treatment works following a tip off.
Abouyaaqoub, wearing a fake explosive belt, is reported to have shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Greatest").
An extensive manhunt was already under way when police closed in on the Subirats area, close to Sant Sadurní d'Anoia.
A petrol station employee spotted Abouyaaqoub and called the police who found him hiding in vineyards.
After
he was shot, bomb disposal officers used a robot to examine the fake
explosive belt. This led to some delay before Moroccan-born Abouyaaqoub
could be officially identified.
Local residents described seeing some 20 police cars heading for the scene and helicopters circling.
Police said the investigation was still international in scope.
At
an earlier news conference, police described Abouyaaqoub's escape from
the scene of the Barcelona attack on foot to the outskirts of the city
where he hijacked a car and stabbed its driver.
CCTV footage in Spanish media appears to show him walking through a market district.
The man murdered in the car was named as Pau Pérez, 34, from Vila
Franca - the 15th victim of the Barcelona bloodshed and a later attack
in the resort of Cambrils.
A woman died in Cambrils when a car
was driven into pedestrians and five suspected jihadists were killed at
the scene by police early on Friday.
Police have also confirmed that an imam, suspected of
radicalising the young men who carried out the attacks, died in what is
believed to have been an accidental explosion on Wednesday at a house in
Alcanar, south of Barcelona, that was being used as a bomb factory.
The remains of one other person found at the house are still being examined.
The terror cell behind the attacks was 12 strong. Police say eight suspects are now dead and four are in custody.
The
group had apparently been planning three co-ordinated attacks using
home-made bombs, but were thwarted by the Alcanar blast. Police found
about 120 gas canisters at the Alcanar site.
Family members of the dead suspects said they believed Imam Es Satty
had radicalised several young people in their home town of Ripoll, north
of Barcelona.
Spanish media outlets say he had spent some time in
prison, and had met prisoners involved or linked with the 2004 Madrid
train bombings in which 191 people died.
He had also stayed in
Belgium for some three months last year, where he had been searching for
work, including in Vilvoorde, a small town of 42,000 people from which
more than 20 jihadists departed for Syria in 2014.
An official who
works on de-radicalisation in Belgium has told the BBC that Es Satty
tried to secure a post at a mosque near Brussels but the elders decided
he should not be allowed to preach due to his "radicalised and
polarising" approach.
The mosque asked police to perform a background security check but this did not throw up any specific areas of concern.
Catalan officials said that all 15 victims had now been identified and their families notified.
BBC
No comments
Your comments and Encouragement are welcome