On Monday morning, the Catalan police identified 22-year-old Moroccan Younes Abouyaaquoub as the terrorist who plowed a truck through a crowd in Barcelona on Thursday. The attack killed 13 people and injured over 100. He escaped, but went on to stab “another driver and mowed down a policewoman.”
Hours after the press conference, reports emerged that the authorities shot him dead as he wore a suicide belt.
From The Guardian:
The shooting happened in Subirats, a town 30 miles west of Barcelona. Police said Abouyaaqoub was wearing a fake suicide vest.Abouyaaqoub, 22, had been identified as the driver of the van that sped down Las Ramblas on Thursday, killing 13 people and injuring more than 130.Police said he shouted “God is great” shortly before being shot dead. The bomb squad was using robots to get closer to the body.Police said earlier on Monday that they could not be certain whether Abouyaaqoub was still in the area or had crossed into France. More than 800 vehicle checkpoints were set up in the aftermath of the Barcelona attack, and Spain tripled the number of officers working on anti-terrorism operations.Abouyaaqoub fled the scene of the attack on foot and is thought to have killed a 14th person to take his car and escape from the city.
Last Thursday, at 5PM local time, Abouyaaqoub plowed a rental truck through a busy tourist street in Barcelona. That attack killed 13 people. During his getaway, the terrorist stabbed a driver to death and took the car.
ISIS took responsibility for the attack.
The authorities concentrated on Abouyaaqoub as the last remaining member of a terrorist cell. Members of that cell used a black Audi car to plow into a crowd in Cambrils and killed one woman.
The authorities also linked the cell to an explosion that happened last Wednesday. From USA Today:
Catalan regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero said a dozen members of the cell stashed more than 100 gas canisters and had planned to use them in vehicle attacks, El País reported. The plot was thwarted, however, when the house in which the butane gas was stored blew up Wednesday, Trapero said. He said at least two suspected terrorists died in the explosion.At the time, authorities suspected a gas leak was responsible for the blast“It’s evident that the person who committed the van attack can’t be dead because the explosion happened before the attack in Las Ramblas,” Forn told Catalunya Radio.
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