Catalonia attacks had been planned ‘for some time’: police

MADRID: Two deadly attacks in Catalonia on Thursday and in the early hours of Friday had been planned for some time by people operating out of the town of Alcanar, police said on Friday.

Alcanar was the site of an explosion in a house shortly before midnight on Wednesday, in an incident which police are now linking to the attacks. Three of the people arrested so far over the attacks are Moroccans and a fourth person in custody is a Spaniard, the regional police chief told a news conference.

None had a history of terror-related activities. They were aged between 21 and 34. Police said they had still not identified the driver of a van who mowed down pedestrians in central Barcelona and then fled the scene on foot. It was possible that this man was among five suspects shot dead in the resort town of Cambrils early on Friday, but nothing was yet certain, the police chief said.

A fourth suspect was arrested Friday over twin attacks in Spain that saw vehicles plough into pedestrians in Barcelona and the nearby seaside town of Cambrils, killing 14 and injuring over 100, police said.

“A fourth person has been detained in relation with the events that have taken place in the last few hours in Cambrils and Barcelona,” police in the Catalonia region tweeted. They said the arrest was made in Ripoll — the same city in northern Catalonia where another suspect and Driss Oukabir, a Moroccan, have already been detained on suspicion of as-yet unspecified involvement in the attacks.

Police are searching for Driss Oukabir’s brother Moussa, but it was not known whether he was the latest person arrested. Spain is reeling from the double attack on Thursday and Friday that saw drivers in Barcelona and Cambrils plough into pedestrians, following similar attacks in other European countries including France, Britain and Germany over the last year or so.

Police said they killed five “suspected terrorists” during the night and four suspects have now been arrested, although authorities had said the driver of the van in Barcelona remained at large.

The latest news comes after police shot and killed five people wearing fake bomb belts who staged a deadly car attack in a seaside resort in Spain’s Catalonia region Friday, just hours after a van plowed into pedestrians on a busy Barcelona promenade. Daesh quickly claimed responsibility.

Amid heavy security, Barcelona tried to move forward on Friday, with its iconic Las Ramblas promenade quietly reopening to the public and King Felipe VI and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy joining thousands of residents and visitors in observing a minute of silence in the city’s main square. “I am not afraid! I am not afraid!” the crowd chanted in Catalan amid applause.

But the dual attacks unnerved a country that hasn’t seen an Islamic extremist attack since 2004, when al-Qaeda-inspired bombers killed 192 people in coordinated assaults on Madrid’s commuter trains. Unlike France, Britain, Sweden and Germany, Spain has largely been spared, thanks in part to a crackdown that has netted some 200 suspected jihadis in recent years.

At noon on Friday, a minute of silence honoring the victims was observed at the Placa Catalunya, near the top of the Ramblas where the van attack started. Rajoy declared three days of national mourning.