Barcelona terror attack suspect shot dead by police

Spanish police on Monday killed a man who could be Younes Abouyaaqoub.

Pic courtesy: Reuters

Barcelona: Police on Monday shot dead a man they suspect was the one who drove a van into a crowd last week, killing 13 people.

Ending a five-day manhunt, police tracked 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub to a rural area near Barcelona. They said they shot him after he held up what appeared to be an explosives belt.

Abouyaaqoub had been on the run since Thursday evening, after he drove at high speed into throngs of people strolling along Barcelona`s most famous avenue, Las Ramblas.

"We confirm that the person shot down in the incident in Subirats (near Barcelona) is Younes Abouyaaqoub, the perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Barcelona," police in Catalonia tweeted.

We confirm that the man shot down in #subirats is Younes Abouyaaqoub, author of the terrorist attack in #barcelona

— Mossos (@mossos) August 21, 2017

Some Spanish media said the man was spotted by a woman in the early afternoon and then fled through vineyards but police managed to find and shoot him on a road near a sewage treatment plant.

Earlier, though the police in Catalonia had confirmed that a man wearing what appeared to be a suicide belt had been killed in Subirats, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) away from Barcelona, they did not identify him initially.

17.05h Suspect in Subirats was wearing what appeared to be an explosive belt. The individual has been shot down by the Catalan police https://t.co/jOHhOdlAEO

— Catalan Government (@catalangov) August 21, 2017

The Mossos` bomb disposal unit (TEDAX) used a robot to approach the belt and sources close to the investigation told Efe news agency reported that they had determined it was fake.

His mother, Hannou Ghanimi, had appealed for him to surrender, saying she would rather see him in prison than end up dead.

In an earlier tweet, police in Catalonia had said that they knew who the driver was without naming him, but regional interior minister Joaquim Forn had said in a radio interview that "everything suggests the van driver is Younes Abouyaaqoub."

Spanish police had also warned that the suspected driver was dangerous and likely armed.

"He is dangerous and could be armed. He is sought as the alleged perpetrator of the Barcelona attack on August 17. He was the van driver," the Departament d'Interior had tweeted.

Describing Abouyaaqoub as around 1.80 metres (five feet, 11 inches) tall, police had tweeted four photographs of the man with short black hair, including three pictures in which he was wearing a black and white striped T-shirt.

We’re searching for this person as the suspected perpetrator of the Barcelona attack. He was the driver van. Share as much as possible pic.twitter.com/UbsT5vkqlT

— Mossos (@mossos) August 21, 2017

The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack and police believe the attack was planned by a dozen accomplices, including a brother and two first cousins of Moroccan-born Abouyaaqoub.

Abouyaaqoub`s brother El Houssaine and first cousins Mohamed and Omar Hychami were among those killed by police in Cambrils. They were all originally from the small Moroccan town of Mrirt.

Meanwhile, authorities today raised the death toll of the attacks to 15, confirming that Pau Perez, a 34-year-old man found stabbed dead in a Ford Focus outside Barcelona on Friday, was killed by Abouyaaqoub, as per AFP.

The police had fired at the car as it forced the checkpoint shortly after the Barcelona carnage and later found Perez stabbed dead in the vehicle.

Police carried out more raids at homes in the town of Ripoll, where many of the suspects lived, Forn said. 

Others thought to be part of a 12-strong cell have been arrested, shot by police or killed in an explosion at a house in Catalonia a day before Thursday`s van attack, as per Reuters.

Investigators seeking to unravel the terror cell have homed in on the small border town of Ripoll, at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains.

Several of the suspects including Abouyaaqoub grew up or lived in the town.

A Moroccan imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, aged in his 40s, has also come under scrutiny as he is believed to have radicalised youths in Ripoll.

Police said the imam had spent time in prison and had once been in contact with a suspect wanted on terrorism charges but was never charged with terror related incidents himself.

The imam has been missing since Tuesday. On Saturday, police raided his apartment. They have raised the possibility that he died in an explosion on Wednesday evening at a house believed to be the suspects` bomb factory, where police uncovered a massive cache of 120 gas canisters.

The suspected jihadists had been preparing bombs for "one or more attacks in Barcelona", regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero told reporters, revealing that traces of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) - a homemade explosive that is an ISIS hallmark - had also been found.

The suspects accidentally caused an explosion at the house on the eve of Thursday`s attack in Barcelona - an error that likely forced them to modify their plans.

Instead, they used a vehicle to smash into crowds on Barcelona`s Las Ramblas boulevard as it was thronged with tourists.

(With Agency inputs)