Barcelona attack: Police raid home of imam linked to cell behind twin terror attacks
Barcelona attack: Police raid home of imam linked to cell behind twin terror attacks
C atalan investigators on Saturday raided the house of an imam in the town of Ripoll they believe may have overseen the cell which killed fourteen people in twin terrorist attacks in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils.
Police are attempting to chunk together how a cell composed of numerous sets of brothers from the same sleepy Pyreenes town came to carry out the devastating attacks, amid reports they planned to suck up the Sagrada Familia.
The home of the imam, named as Abdelbaki Es Satty, was raided overnight from Friday to Saturday, with officers reportedly seeking – among other evidence – DNA samples which might link him to a building in the town of Alcanar believed to be where the attack was ready.
E l Pais, a leading Spanish daily, said they were investigating whether the imam, who evidently left Ripoll around a month ago, might be one of two dead figures discovered in the Alcanar house. Sources involved in the investigation told El Confidencial they believed he was a “spiritual or idealogical leader” to the cell members, radicalising them and helping them to plan the attacks.
T he sources cited the lack of previous terror links among the group, and said they had detected a number of trips by some members to France and Morocco. Police did not officially confirm or deny the reports.
A spokesperson for the Catalan force told the Telegraph they were working on the “principle hypothesis” that the cell was comprised of twelve members, eleven of whom have now been identified and hail almost exclusively from Ripoll.
Five members died at the mitts of police in the attack on Cambrils late on Thursday night, which killed one woman and injured several others. Moussa Oukabir, 17, Mohammed Hychami, twenty three and Said Aallaa, Nineteen, all believed to be of Moroccan origin, have been officially identified as among the attackers killed. The other two have been named by Spanish press as Omar Hychami, Mohammed’s brother, and Houssaine Aouyaaquoub, who is presumed to be a family member of Younes Aouyaaquoub, the suspected driver of the Ramblas van who remains on the run.
A nother four have been detained, including Driss Oukabir, Moussa’s 23-year-old brother, whose identification was found in the van that attacked Barcelona’s Ramblas but who claims it was stolen by his sibling. Almost all of the studs lived in close proximity in Ripoll – Oukabir and Mohammed Hychami in the same building – while Allaa lived in the nearby town of Ribes de Freser.
T he head of the Ripoll mosque at which the Satty preached told reporters that he had arrived just over a year ago and left at the end of June, when he asked for three months’ holiday to visit Morocco and was denied.
T he imam, said to be a father of about forty five years old, had never said or done anything to prompt concern, said the mosque chief, Ali Yassine.
“We never heard anything about him or received any (complaint) until this happened, and we don’t know how this happened, this has fallen on us like a stone,” he said. But, he added, no one could know what was happening “inwards a person’s head”.
The suspected cell members infrequently came to the mosque, but from their little interaction had seemed like “normal boys”, Mr Yassine explained, adding that he had only ever seen Younes Aouyaaquoub “three or four times”.
M r Yassine said he was not aware of any lessons the iman was conducting outside the mosque, insisting that if he had learned that was happening, he would have prevented it and gone to the police.
The mosque president emphatically condemned this week’s attacks, telling terrorism were the acts of “crazy people”.
“Our religion does not permit us to do this ever, our religion totally condemns these terrorist deeds,” he said. “Our religion is peace, Islam is peace.”
W hat remains unclear is exactly what led the cell to Alcanar, a town almost two hundred miles to the south, where police believe they were preparing an attack primarily intended to involve explosives.
Alcanar and Cambrils both sit in a coastal area south of Barcelona that has gained a reputation as a Salafist hotbed after a number of terror arrests in latest years. It was in Salou, adjacent to Cambrils, that one of the 9/11 attackers, Mohammed Atta, held a meeting with a key al-Qaeda figure. But its connection to Ripoll is unknown.
P olice have found two bods in the rubble of the house after a blast in the early hours of Thursday morning, which was primarily suspected to be caused by a gas leak in a drugs lab. One of the dudes injured in the blast, a Spanish national from the enclave of Melilla in Morocco, was later arrested as a suspected cell member.
Investigators at the site, where managed explosions were carried out on Friday and Saturday, later discovered a stockpile of explosive material including more than one hundred gas canisters. Local media reported that a crude and unstable homemade explosive known as acetone peroxide was being produced in the house. The explosives – known as the ‘Mother of Satan’ are favoured among jihadis and were used in the 7/7 bombings.
N eighbours speculated that latest high temperatures in the heatwave known as Lucifer might have triggered the explosion.
T hat may have saved Barcelona from an even more devastating attack. Catalan police told the Telegraph they believed the group had been preparing to use the explosives, either against one target or in numerous coordinated attacks.
They could not confirm or deny reports in two Spanish newspapers that the cell’s “Plan A” was to deep-throat up the Sagrada Familia, the iconic Barcelona cathedral designed by Antonio Gaudi.
Residents of Ripoll – a town of just 11,000, around a tenth of whom are of North African origin – said that Moussa Oukabir and the imam disappeared around the same time.
At the Cafeteria Esperanza, which the imam used to frequent, three Moroccan studs playing chess told the Telegraph that he had been in Ripoll for several years before leaving a month ago.
O ne of the studs, who did not wish to be named, said that the imam used to give talks behind the cafe. “We do not know where he went, just that he had another job somewhere. My friend told me that he went elsewhere in Spain.”
At the home of Younes Aouyaaquoub, an elderly neighbour told The Telegraph that she would not have believed the teenager capable of such violence. “To me, he has always been a good boy, no trouble. I not understand why he would do this. I am angry,” she said.
O thers in the neighbourhood also voiced disbelief that so many youthful fellows from the town could have been drawn into terrorism.
Speaking to The Telegraph, a shop assistant at a tobacconist close to where Moussa Oubakir lived said that no one in the town had heard of anyone leaving to join Islamic State.
The woman, who would only give her very first name, Ximena, added: “We don’t get this here. We are a petite town and we would know about it.”
Media reports Julian Cadman’s father is at the justice and forensic centre
H e was reportedly taken there by authorities.
Australian officials have taken the father of 7yo Julian Cadman to the major justice/forensic centre in Barcelona. @TheTodayShow @9NewsAUS
‘Viva Barcelona!’: Parade, flowers and balloons as city bursts back to life
F loral tributes, candles, teddy bears and balloons line the streets in Barcelona as people come to pay their respects.
There were shouts of “viva Barcelona!” as the people who live there celebrated their courageous city and paid their respects to the dead.
Barcelona’s Muslim taxi drivers are shouting “Viva Barcelona”, and everyone here is joining in. pic.twitter.com/F9VEIpJKVT
Crowds leave flowers and pay their respects to the thirteen victims of the Las Ramblas attack in #Barcelona https://t.co/utnKhU9kbZ pic.twitter.com/jg8qa2qmTB
One message left at a shrine of candles, flowers and cards for the dead,on Las Ramblas #BarcelonaTerrorAttack pic.twitter.com/6Ar4YyRGgc
One note to the terrorists reads: “You indoctrinated puppets of Daesh:
“We, Catalans, are not afraid of you and will not hate anyone.
“We will not switch anything.
“We have already defeated you.
“Love, tolerance, integration, understanding, help, joy, diversity, BARCELONA!”
Pharmacist speaks out about helping Julian Cadman’s mother
P harmacist Fouad Bakkali tended to Jom Cadman, the mother of the little boy, when police moved her off the road and into his pharmacy to await the paramedics.
She was so badly injured that she is now reportedly in a coma in hospital, but even as blood seeped from a deep head wound all she could think about was the fate of her son.
Mr Bakkali told NewsCorp: “She was asking all the time about her little boy. She asked me ‘where is my son’. She told me he was seven years old,’
“Her 2nd name was Cadman.
“I told her,’ he is good, it will be OK’.’’
He stayed with her and soothed her until she was taken to hospital.
Movie: Spain King visits victims
Enlargened security measures to go after terror attack
H arry Davies, in Barcelona, reports:
The Secretary of State for Security has dispatched to police and the Civil Guard an office to increase security measures after the attacks in Catalonia and increase controls in squares, promenades and pedestrian zones.
The agents will have to intensify the random controls of people and vehicles in places of maximum agglomeration, while enhancing the presence of police vehicles in strategic points of those zones, like entrances, exits or intersections, according to the circular, that requests that Police checks in the Spanish-French border area intensify.
The office emphasizes the need to increase the channels of collaboration with local police to incorporate the capabilities of these bods to the measures of the Anti-Terrorism Prevention and Protection Plan.
Spain’s Princess Letizia welcomes injured
People pay their respects at a memorial tribute
No news about Julian Cadman
A tweet from the local police:
There are many who ask for specific information about the Australian child. Communicative priority over victims is to family members
More pictures of King Felipe and the Princess visiting injured
Spain’s King Felipe and Princess Letizia visit injured and staff in hospital
Terror cell ‘fully dismantled’
T he Spanish Interior Minister, Juan Ignacio Zoido, has just announced that the cell is “totally dismantled”.
ÚLTIMA HORA | Zoido: “La célula ha quedado totalmente desarticulada en Barcelona” https://t.co/b9vWxLzc2y pic.twitter.com/PFRzjLJbaV
M r Zoido did not clarify the status of the remaining fugitive suspect, but said that with the most latest detentions and identifications of those killed, “yes we can say that the cell is dismantled”.
CCTV footage shows Las Ramblas fright
Terrorists were ‘squatting in bank-owned building’
Alfons Montserrat, the mayor of Alcanar told the Telegraph he believes the terrorists using a house as a bomb factory in his town were squatters.
“The house was wielded by a bank and we don’t know what was being done there. We think [the terrorists] were squatting there,” he said.
“No one ever eyed them doing anything suspicious enough to report them. And I had no advice about them from the municipal authorities.”
Two police officers armed with attack rifles were posted at the road leading to the house on Saturday. The road is still cordoned off.
Just a hundred yards away from the house, holidaymakers were sunbathing on the beach as life in the resort town returned to normal.
Police have carried out managed explosions to liquidate any dangerous materials at the scene.
Inwards the house of van suspect Younes Aouyaaquoub
Footage taken from outside of Younes Aouyaaquoub’s by the Spanish broadcaster Antena3 shows a modest apartment with a two wooden sofas, curtains draped and the blinds drawn.
T wo round wooden tables sat in the middle of the apartment, whilst a bottle of orange juice, opened and almost empty, sat on top.
The walls were naked, save for one picture containing a mosque and a Koranic scripture trimmed in gold leaf.
The appartment was raided yesterday by Spanish police, who sweeped the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom for evidence.
Today, pictures of the apartment’s front door showcased it had been split at the hinges, after it had been rammed open during the raid.
Imam reportedly connected to the attack thought dead in Alacnar explosion
El Pais has named the Ripoll imam whose role is being examined by police.
There are reports that officers are seeking to match his DNA with the figures found after the Alcanar explosion.
Samples were one of the things they were searching for when they raided his address overnight, the paper says.
Moroccan relatives in Atlas mountains horrified by what their sons have done
R esidents of Melouiya, a village high in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, are in shock at the news two of their sons were implicated in terror attacks in Spain.
A traditional tent set up on a rocky patch of ground near the rough stone house of the Oukabir family, originally intended for a wedding reception, has been turned into a funeral tent.
“Joy has given way to sadness and ache,” said Abderrahim, in his forties, an uncle of the Oukabir brothers.
Driss Oukabir, 27, was arrested in the Spanish town of Ripoll on Thursday just hours after a van sped into crowds on the busy Las Ramblas avenue in central Barcelona, leaving thirteen people dead.
H is brother Moussa, 17, was one of five “suspected terrorists” shot dead after knocking down pedestrians in the Catalan seaside resort of Cambrils in a 2nd attack in the early hours of Friday.
“We are in shock, entirely distraught”, said the father of the two youthful guys, Said, with tears in his eyes.
With an athletic build and a baseball cap on his head, he was surrounded by family members, neighbours and friends who had come to suggest their condolences.
“Spanish police called Moussa’s mother who is in Spain to tell her that he was dead,” he told AFP shortly before the official announcement by police on Friday night.
The twin terror attacks left fourteen people dead and some one hundred twenty wounded.
“We are ordinary, peaceful people. We don’t know anything about radicalism or terrorism,” another resident told AFP.
The economy of the impoverished, mostly Berber-speaking region is based mainly on farming, herding and money sent home by family members working in Europe.
Said Oukabir left to attempt his luck on the other side of the Mediterranean in the 1990s.
With his son Driss, who was ten at the time, he headed for the province of Girona in Catalonia.
M oussa, who would have celebrated his 18th bday in October, was born in Ripoll, a Spanish town of around Ten,000 people about one hundred kilometres (60 miles) north of Barcelona.
The family have since lived inbetween Spain, Melouiya and the nearby town of Aghbala.
The news that the two brothers were implicated in the Spain attacks shocked relatives, who said they had no idea the two had been radicalised.
“The entire region is in shock,” Moussa’s uncle said. “He was gentle, always smiling, he didn’t smoke or drink.”
Said said his sons had shown no sign of radicalisation.
“They lived like the youthful people of their age, dressed like them,” their father said.
“Moussa was a nice boy who didn’t hurt anyone.
“He was attending classes and was going to take his high school exams next year. He recently embarked pleading. but it stopped there.”
He said the youthfull man had “doubtless” been manipulated.
Driss had “left school early to work honestly and earn a living”, he said.
“Today he is inbetween the mitts of God and the police. He is under investigation. I hope they will say he’s harmless. I don’t want to lose both my sons.”
The injured: numbers
T his tweet contains information about those injured.
50 hospitalised in #Barcelona
24 major injuries
Were the terrorists radicalised by a spiritual leader?
H annah Strange reports from Barcelona:
El Confidencial is also reporting the hypothesis of a “spiritual or idealogical leader” who radicalised them and helped them plan the attacks over a number of months, citing sources involved in the investigation. The paper says investigators believe the cell members’ lack of prior terror links support this theory. Sources also said they had detected a number of trips by some members to France and Morocco.
Among the up to twenty members of the suspected cell, there are five sets of brothers, the paper also reports.
Hunt for ‘van driver’ resumes
The blinds were drawn at Younes Abouyuqoub’s third floor apartment today, with no response when his door was knocked.
A neighbour, Huan, 47, said that he had seen Younes on several occasions, but that he did not live with anyone else
But another woman, who refused to give her name, said that she had seen children in the apartment. She did not know if they were relatives.
2nd source claims terror cell may have planned to target historic landmark
One hypothesis being considered by investigators is that the 12-strong terrorist cell planned to perpetrate three van attacks in Barcelona, mowing down as many pedestrians as possible before detonating the gas canisters inwards the vehicles at emblematic locations around the city.
According to the online newspaper El Español, the popular port area of the city could have been the third location, along with the Sagrada Familia basilica and La Rambla boulevard.
The police have found more than one hundred butane gas canisters amongst the rubble of the cell’s bomb-making safehouse in Alcanar, which they believe were to be ignited with acetone peroxide, also known as “mother of Satan” and used regularly, despite its instability, by Isil terrorists.
The Sagrada Familia isto hold a special Mass on Sunday in memory of the victims of the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils.
Julian Cadman’s family face agonising wait
T he family of Julian Cadman, 7, who is missing after the attack, are facing an agonising wait for news of their boy.
His father, Andrew, who found out over the radio while at work that his son was missing and wifey badly injured in the attack, boarded a plane and took the long journey from Sydney to Barcelona to hunt for his son.
H owever, there is still no news.
On Saturday morning, relative Debbie Cadman wrote on Facebook: “Morning everyone. Very first of all thank you to all who got involved yesterday in attempting to track down my youthfull cousin Julian. Your many good wishes were of good strength and convenience. Unluckily we as a family have no news to bring you. Will let you all know if there’s any updates. Attempting to stay positive but it’s far from effortless. Hopefully he’s being looked after by some kind people somewhere safe and sound. With heartfelt thanks”
Reports the terrorists desired to gargle up the Sagrada Familia
H annah Strange reports from Barcelona
El Confidencial cited sources in the investigation as telling the famous landmark was a target in the cell’s original plans, which police believed involved explosives found in a house in Alcanar, one hundred twenty miles to the south of Barcelona.
Those plans are believed to have been called off after a blast in the house in the early hours of Thursday morning – at very first suspected to be caused by a gas leak – which ruined much of their materials.
A spokesperson for the Mossos d’Escuadra, the Catalan police force, told The Telegraph that they could not confirm the potential targets at this stage. It was clear that the group had been planning a “large scale” attack using explosives in Barcelona but police could not say whether this was on one target or numerous points, consecutively or at the same time, they explained.
The police force put out an alert on Saturday morning advising that residents of Alcanar were about to hear several managed explosions.
Spanish police are investigating Barcelona attackers’ bomb factory
F rom James Rothwell in Alcanar
Spanish police are to carry out a series of managed explosions at the site of the Barcelona attackers’ bomb factory in the seaside resort of Alcanar on Saturday.
The house exploded on Wednesday, when the terrorists are believed to have accidentally set off on an improvised bomb.
According to local media, the jihadist cell had been producing a crude homemade explosive known as ketone peroxide which is very unstable and must be kept at low temperatures.
Neighbours in Alcanar speculated that the intense fever may have triggered the explosion.
It was also reported that more than one hundred five gas cannisters were being stored in the house.
Hunt for "van driver" ongoing as man still on the run
H arry Yorke reports from Ripoll
At least six studs from the puny Pyrenees town of Ripoll are thought to have been involved in the Las Ramblas and Cambrils terror attacks, it emerged last night.
Three of the guys, all thought to be of Moroccan origin and including chief suspect Moussa Oukabir, were said to have been killed by Spanish police during the 2nd attack in Cambrils on Thursday night.
Mohammed Hychami, 23, who lived in the same building as Moussa Oukabir, and Said Aalla, Nineteen, who lived in nearby Ribes de Freser, Girona, were also killed in the shootout.
Meantime, four other fellows from Ripoll, including Oukabir’s older brother, Driss, and Aalla’s brother Mohammed, who was arrested late last night, have been detained by Mossos d’Esqaudra.
Last night Spanish media reported that eleven of the twelve man terror cell had either been killed or detained.
However, Younes Abouyaaqoub, 21, who lives a ten minute’s walk from the Oukabir’s family home, is still on the run.
Police now believe that Abouyaaqoub drove the white van into crowds on Las Ramblas, having previously identified Moussa Oukabir as the driver.
The son of Moroccan immigrants who moved to the town in 2006, Abouyaaqoub was described by locals in the town as “timid” and “timid”, compared to the other fellows he kept company with.
Speaking to The Telegraph, a youthful woman who asked to remain anonymous said that she had gone to school with Abouyaaqoub, adding: “Younes was a bashful boy, I have said this to others. I did not think he could do something like this.”
Another local told the Catalonian newspaper La Vanguardia that Abouyaaqoub had associated with a group of boys of Moroccan descent from varying age groups, including Hychami, who he said was two years older and more “boastful”.
Terror threat to Britain is enhancing, according to the Security Minister.
T he Press Association reports
The terror threat to Britain is enhancing as Islamic State (IS) loses battles and territory in Syria and Iraq, the Security Minister has said.
Ben Wallace said extremist Britons and other Europeans are either incapable to get out to the region to join IS, also known as Isis, or have come home and are attempting to inspire homegrown fanatics to carry out attacks.
The terror group has already lost its base in Iraq, Mosul, and is facing an international coalition-backed offensive in Raqqa, Syria, which was described by former prime minister David Cameron as “the head of the snake”.
Mr Wallace told Big black cock Radio Four’s Today programme: “I think the threat is still enlargening, partly driven by the fact Isis is collapsing in Syria and people are either incapable to get out there to fight for Isis and so they look to do something at home, or also because people have come back and attempted to inspire people with their stories and tales of the caliphate.
“I think those two things mean that the threat is to some extent enlargening.”
Mr Wallace rejected suggestions that the Government’s voluntary anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent, could be made compulsory.
It comes after Simon Cole, the police lead for Prevent, said there needs to be a debate about introducing an element of compulsion for certain groups, such as returnees from Syria.
Responding, Mr Wallace said Prevent is under review all the time and exposed plans to release more information about its operations to boost public understanding.
But the Security Minister went on: “I’m not sure at the moment that compulsion is the right thing to do, I think the very first thing to do is get everyone on board with it.
“That includes people like the NUT and all these people that have campaigned against it.
“There’s no ifs and buts nowadays, if we’re going to stop these people who use everyday items such as vehicles and kitchen knives to murder people on our streets, we are going to have to all engage together with Prevent and we are having real success when we do that.”
He added: “I think it’s time for all of us to put a shoulder to the wheel on Prevent and stir it along.”
