Footage from Barcelona attack emerges as manhunt continues in separate Spanish attack
A roundup of attacks in Spain: security video overlooking La Rambla Avenue records vehicle's ramming into crowd and people fleeing; so far, 13 have died in Barcelona attack, in addition to about 130 injured from some 34 countries; 1 dead in vehicular attack in Cambrils; previous gas explosion in Alcanar also linked to attacks; all together, victims presently come to 14.
Meanwhile, Spanish newspaper El Pais published documentation Friday from a security camera of the minutes of Thursday's vehicular terror attack in Barcelona. The video shows the car's rapid passage on La Rambla Avenue, which killed 13 people.
In the security video, which documented a security camera installed inside a gallery overlooking La Rambla, the car's rapid transit is seen ramming into the crowd and people starting to run in panic.
Police in Catalonia additionally said they had killed five terrorists in the southern coastal town of Cambrils last night. Police said they responded to a vehicular terrorist attack, and in the Spanish media reported that the terrorists raced to passersby on the promenade on the coast of the town. The vehicle was reportedly overturned, and when the terrorists left, they were shot by the police. Authorities confirmed that six civilians and one policeman were injured in the attack. At noon, a message was issued stating that one of the victims had died of her wounds.
The government in Catalonia believes that the terrorist attacks that took place within a few hours in Spain, Barcelona and the coastal town of Cambarlis are interconnected. "There is a connection between the attacks," said the Interior Minister Joaquim Forn, who added that the driver of a car that had run and murdered 13 people on the Boulevard de la Rambla was still being hunted and another 100 injured.
Catalonia Police also linked the two incidents—in Barcelona and Cambrils—to an explosion on Wednesday night in an apartment in the town of Alcanar, located about 200 km from Barcelona, in which at least one person was injured.
Reuters quoted a legal source in Spain as saying that the authorities investigating the terrorist attack in Barcelona believed that a cell of eight people had been involved in the attacks. It was further claimed that the attackers planned an attack using cooking gas tanks (butane). "Our priority right now is to identify these people and to prove and show the relations between all the suspects—those who rented the commercial vehicle and those who managed to escape."
After claiming responsibility for Thursday's vehicular attack in Barcelona, the Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said: “The perpetrators of the Barcelona attack are soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting coalition states”—a reference to a US-led coalition against the Sunni militant group. The claim could not immediately be verified.
If the involvement of Islamist militants is confirmed, it would be the latest in a string of attacks in the past 13 months in which they have used vehicles to bring carnage to the streets of European cities.
Three of the people arrested so far over the attacks are Moroccans and a fourth person in custody is a Spaniard, the regional police chief told a news conference. None had a history of terror-related activities. They were aged between 21 and 34.
Police said they had still not identified the driver of a van who mowed down pedestrians in central Barcelona and then fled the scene on foot.
It was possible that this man was among five suspects shot dead in the resort town of Cambrils early on Friday, but nothing was yet certain, the police chief said.
So far, 13 have died in the attack, in addition to about 130 injured from some 34 different countries, 16 of them reported to be in serious condition. Together with the single fatality in the Cambrils attack, the attacks in Spain presently come to 14 victims.
