Spanish Police kills Barcelona attack van driver

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Last Monday, the police of Barcelona, Spain killed Younes Abouyaaqoub at At Subirats, west of Barcelona. Before the kill, the police started international search for the van driver on the preceding Sunday. When policemans tried to arrest him, he faced them so the police opened fire. On Monday, a woman saw a man resemble Younes’s photo provided by police, and wear long sleeves on a hot 30°C day. The woman alerted police. Police sent a robot to remove the explosives in the body of the man to prevent the security of the policemans in case to be real and allow the identification of the suspect, after they shot the man and subsequently confirmed his identity. Abouyaaqoub was the driver of the van that trampled and killed 13 persons and injured more of one hundred persons in La Rambla of Barcelona.

When the police arrive to the place and they tried to arrest the fugitive, he opened his shirt and showed a fake suicide belt while he said in high voice “Allah is great” and he walked over 13 meters until policemans so the Mossos opened fire. Next, police used robots to remove a fake suicide belt from the man. The belt may have contained explosives. Then while a police helicopter was observing the scene from air, police approached the man and confirmed that there were no explosives. Then police confirmed the man’s identity and found he also had knives.

Younes was the twelfth suspect in the Thursday van attack at La Rambla pedestrian walk. Police suspected him as the van driver. Police had started looking for Abouyaaqoub in France and Catalonia on Sunday.

The Moroccan citizen Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22 years old, was being pursued by police in Catalonia and near the French border. He is the only one of the twelve suspects still at large. Authorities believe he was in France. Abouyaaqoub was suspected of being the driver of the van used in the attack. According to his family, he exhibited more religiously conservative behaviour over the past year and became became reluctant to deal with women. After finished the attack Abouyaaqoub had to stole a car to make his escape and the driver of this car was killed by him.

Abouyaaqoub was in Subirats, a city on west of Barcelona when he has found by the Barcelona police, Mossos, and they were shot and killed to the fugitive. The suspect of the attack in Barcelona was wearing an explosive belt and the police didn’t inmediately identify him as Abouyaaqoub. A robot was used to remove the explosives while polices did the identification of the man died. The fugitive aroused suspicion to a woman because he had inadeaquates clothes for a hot day. The area where Abouyaaqoub was killed is a rural area, with too little population and it has pine trees.

The attack took place at 17:10 local time, (UTC+0100). The van drove 500 meters along a pedestrian walkway, killing 13 people, injuring more than a hundred. The van driver fled on foot. Local police officers searched the surroundings and arrested two suspects, but the van driver they did not find was not arrested.

According to the local government, victims included citizens from 24 different countries, including France, Venezuela, Ireland, Peru, Algeria, China, Belgium (1 dead), Greece (1 injured), Australia (1 dead, 2 injured), Taiwan (2 injured), Hong Kong (1 injured), and Germany (unknown whether dead or injured). Many of the injured taken to the hospital were tourists unable to speak Spanish. The hospitals called for interpreters to assist in communication with the patients. An Australian seven-year old boy is among the dead. He was alive when he arrived at the hospital but did not survive.

Public transportation services had been stopped and the square of Catalonia has been closed to prevent further attacks and to allow emergency services reach any emergencies faster. The police, asserting safety concerns, have asked people not share images or data about the attack on the Internet.

According to a Spanish broadcaster RTVE, the local police arrested Driss Oukabir as a suspect, and his identification documents were found in the van involved in the attack. The local news outlet also said that the suspect claimed his identification documents were missing and might have been stolen by his brother. Local police refused to comment on the identity of the individuals arrested., Mossos D’Esquadra, denied this report. Via Twitter, Mossos D’Esquadra said they had arrested a suspect and the incident was investigated as a “terrorist attack”.–>

The Amaq news outlet, allegedly linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant group, claimed ISIS was responsible for the, saying “The executors of the Barcelona attack were soldiers of the Islamic State”. They did not disclose the identities of the attackers. They alleged the attack was meant to target a coalition of countries at war with Iraq and Syria.

A few hours after the first disaster, another attack took place in Cambrils, near Tarragona. The Catalonian police reported they had shot the suspects, killing at least five and injuring one. The police authorities said that the two attacks were connected. In the Cambrils attacks the police killed another Abouyaaqoub´s relatives, a brother and two cousings, all people were using fakes explosives belts, the car used by the three persons overturned and while they exited, the vehicle the police shot and killed them.

This was Spain’s deadliest attack since 2004, when 192 people were injured during their commute on trains in Madrid.

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