Barcelona: Spanish authorities are continuing their search for a 22-year-old suspect and two others over the brutal vehicle attacks on the Las Ramblas boulevard in Barcelona and a nearby coastal city.
The suspect has been named as Younes Abauyaaqoub, who may have been the driver of the van that ploughed through crowds, killing 13 people.
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Julian Cadman killed in Barcelona attack
A seven-year-old Sydney boy was one of 13 people killed in last week’s terrorist attack at Las Ramblas in central Barcelona. Vision: Seven News
One person was killed in a second vehicle attack hours later in the seaside resort of Cambrils, about 100km to the south-west.
Spanish police say a terror cell made up of Moroccans and all younger than 35, had carried out both attacks. The cell had collected 120 gas canisters and were planning a “much more serious attack” that was probably thwarted by an accidental explosion on Wednesday.
Authorities say they have now identified three more of the victims of the Las Ramblas attack, including seven-year-old Australian boy Julian Cadman.
The Cadman family released a statement through the Australian government, mourning the loss of their “funny and cheeky” boy.
“Julian was a much loved and adored member of our family,” they said.
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A spokesman for Catalonia’s emergency services division, declined to name the two other victims that had been identified but said they were Belgian and Italian.
Australian boy Julian Cadman was killed in the Barcelona terrorist attack, his family has confirmed. Photo: Facebook
Catalan national police chief Josep Lluis Trapero said authorities are searching for three people from the cell: “We have found remains of two people. Four people have been detained. There is still one person missing.”
In an emotional plea Saturday on Spanish television, Abauyaaqoub’s mother, Hanno Ghanim, urged her son to turn himself in. “I prefer him going to jail before him dying,” she said.
Members of the local Muslim community in Ripoll, home to several of the young men suspected of plotting the Barcelona attack. Photo: AP
Spain is now struggling to understand how a group of childhood friends from the countryside, some of whom still lived with their parents and were too young to drive, could have planned such a deadly and complicated attack.
Nowhere was this questioning more acute than in Ripoll, the home town of at least eight members of the cell, where their families and friends were taken aback by the news. Trapero said on Sunday that the cell had probably been there for at least six months.
Younes Abouyaaquoub, 22, suspected of being the ringleader of an Islamic extremist cell that carried out vehicle attacks in Barcelona. Photo: AP
For many, it was difficult to believe that the group of young men could have organised such a complicated operation, with multiple bases and targets, by themselves.
That was the principal question of Rashid Oukabir, a cousin of 17-year-old Moussa Oukabir, a suspect who was fatally shot by police early Friday during the vehicle attack in Cambrils. “Who is behind all this? Who is the big fish?” he said.
“It’s impossible these kids did all this on their own. Who helped them?”
In Ripoll, the consensus among family members was that the young men fell under the sway of a visiting cleric who had possibly radicalised their sons, brothers and cousins.
Spanish media has named that cleric as Abdelbaki Essati, who had served at a mosque in Ripoll and whose home was searched on Saturday by police. Police said on Sunday that Essati had not been connected to previous terrorism-related investigations but that an unidentified friend of his had been implicated.
Police searched for DNA samples from his apartment, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, as they suspected Essati of having been one of two suspects killed in the explosion on Wednesday, when butane and propane canisters probably intended for the Barcelona attack detonated prematurely in the Spanish city of Alcanar. The identity of the second person killed in that blast remains unconfirmed.
“We know very clearly that this was the scene where they were preparing bombs for conducting one or two attacks in Barcelona,” Trapero said on Sunday, noting that officers had discovered more than 100 butane tanks as well as “ingredients” linked to TATP, a signature Islamic State explosive.
The department’s “thesis,” Trapero said, was that the cell had planned a much more serious attack but had to abandon that after the accidental explosion.
In Barcelona, life has started to return to normal, although an atmosphere of heightened anxiety and tightened security remains.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and King Felipe VI attended a memorial Mass at Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Familia Basilica. Pope Francis relayed a message of condolence, expressing “deep regret” at “such an inhuman action,” referring to the attacks.
Barcelona FC played an emotional match on Sunday evening in front of more than 56,000 supporters at the Nou Camp stadium.
Players and spectators paid tribute with a minute’s silence before the game against Real Betis, with fans then chanting, “we are not afraid” as the game began.
Instead of having individual names on the back of their shirts, Barcelona players bore the name of the city as an additional tribute.
The Washington Post and staff reporters
Article source: http://watoday.com.au/small-business/managing/work-in-progress/intercultural-relationships-a-factor-in-entrepreneurial-success-research-shows-20170720-gxfmwo.html
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