TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2017 Last bongs for Big Ben as four-year repairs begin 10 sailors missing after US destroyer collision off Singapore Page 9 Page 8 BARCELONA: Interior Minister for the Catalan government Joaquim Forn (C) speaks past Josep Lluis Trapero, chief of the Catalan regional police “Mossos D’Esquadra” (R) and Justice Minister of the Catalan Government Carles Mundo during a press conference. — AFP Police kill Barcelona attack suspect Massive manhunt for the Moroccan national BARCELONA: Spanish police yesterday shot after the vehicle rampages in Barcelona and of the identity of the suspect to enable the On the other side of Brussels, the Molenbeek the group did not agree to. The imam has been dead a man who could be Younes the seaside resort of Cambrils. The Islamic launch of a Europe-wide manhunt. suburb has gained notoriety as a hotbed of missing since Tuesday. On Saturday, police raid- Abouyaaqoub, the suspected driver of a van State (IS) claimed responsibility for the international jihadists after the Brussels bomb- ed his apartment. They have raised the possibil- that mowed down pedestrians in Barcelona, assaults, believed to be its first in Spain. Iman’s influence ings in March 2016 and the Paris attacks in ity that he died in an explosion on Wednesday amid a massive manhunt for the Moroccan Authorities yesterday raised the death toll Investigators seeking to unravel the terror November 2015. In the Moroccan town of M’rirt, evening at a house believed to be the suspects’ national described as dangerous and likely to 15, confirming that Pau Perez, a 34-year-old cell have homed in on the small border town relatives of Abouyaaqoub have accused the bomb factory, where police uncovered a mas- armed. “They have shot dead a suspect who man found stabbed to death in a Ford Focus of Ripoll at the foot of the Pyrenees moun- imam of radicalizing the young man as well as sive cache of 120 gas canisters. could be the perpetrator of the attack,” a outside Barcelona on Friday, was killed by tains. Several suspects including his brother Houssein. “Over the last two years, The suspected jihadists had been preparing source close to the probe told AFP on condi- Abouyaaqoub. The police had fired at the car Abouyaaqoub grew up or lived in the town. Younes and Houssein began to radicalize under bombs for “one or more attacks in Barcelona”, tion of anonymity. Regional police confirmed a as it forced its way through a checkpoint Moroccan imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, aged in the influence of this imam,” their grandfather regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero told man wearing what appeared to be a suicide shortly after the Barcelona carnage, and later his 40s, has also come under scrutiny as he is told AFP. A neighbor close to the Abouyaaqoub reporters, revealing that traces of triacetone belt had been killed in Subirats, a village about found Perez in the vehicle. Investigators believed to have radicalised youths in Ripoll. family, speaking on condition of anonymity, said triperoxide (TATP) — a homemade explosive that 60 kilometers away from Barcelona, without believe the victim was the owner of the car, Police raided more homes in Ripoll on the imam “had recruited Moroccans of Ripoll is an IS hallmark-had also been found. The acci- identifying the individual. Bomb disposal units which was hijacked by Abouyaaqoub to make Monday, Catalonia’s regional interior minister and planned the attacks”. But Ali Assid, president dental explosion in the house in Alcanar, south of have been dispatched to the site. his getaway. Joaquim Forn said. Police said the imam had of the Annour Islamic community that runs the Barcelona, may have forced the suspects to modi- Describing Abouyaaqoub as around 1.8 spent time in prison and had once been in Ripoll mosque where Satty was preaching, said fy their plans. Instead, they used a vehicle to 12-man cell meters tall, police tweeted four photographs contact with a suspect wanted on terrorism the imam “never sent a radical message, all he smash into crowds on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas Earlier yesterday, police had launched an of the man with short black hair, including charges but was never himself charged with preached was really Islam. If he is behind all that, boulevard as it was thronged with tourists, appeal for information about the 22-year-old three pictures in which he was wearing a black terror-related incidents. In Belgium, the mayor there he must be showing us one face in the killing 13 people and injuring about 100. Several fugitive, believed to be the last remaining and white striped T-shirt. of the Vilvorde region told AFP that Satty mosque and showing another face outside.” hours later, a similar attack in the seaside town of member of a 12-man cell suspected of plot- He is “dangerous and could be armed,” spent time in the Brussels suburb of Assid said Satty had parted ways with the Cambrils left one woman dead. Police shot dead ting last week’s deadly attacks. The other sus- police in Catalonia said. Spanish authorities Machelen-a district next to the city’s airport- mosque in late June after Ramadan, as he want- the five attackers, some of whom were wearing pects have been killed by police or detained were also officially notifying European police between January and March 2016. ed a vacation of three months-a request that fake explosive belts and carrying knives. — AFP Van hits people at Marseille bus stops MARSEILLE: One person was killed and another the eastern 11th district, where he slammed into Dozens of police sealed off the area while search- seriously injured in the southern French city of another bus stop, causing one fatality. Several ing the vehicle for possible explosives. Marseille yesterday after a van ploughed into European cities, including London, Berlin and The bloodiest vehicle attack in Europe took people at two bus stops, police sources said, Stockholm, have been targeted in a wave of place in July 2016 in the French city of Nice, when adding that the suspected driver had been attacks by Islamist radicals using vehicles to run a radicalized Tunisian drove a truck through arrested. Marseille’s prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux down people. Many have been claimed by the crowds celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86 people. said that investigators had “no element pointing Islamic State group. Terrorism experts have France has avoided a major incident in the past to a terrorist attack” and that the driver was suf- warned that the intense media coverage of the year but has suffered a slew of small-scale strikes, fering from psychiatric problems. violence could spur copycat attacks by people mainly targeting the security forces. On August 9, “He was found with a letter from a psychiatric with mental health problems and a propensity a 36-year-old Algerian ran down soldiers on anti- clinic and we are leaning towards treating it as a for violence. Julien Ravier, mayor of the 11th dis- terrorism patrol west of Paris, injuring six. mental health case,” Tarabeux told AFP. The inci- trict, told the BFMTV news channel that the vic- Three days earlier, a knife-wielding 18- dent comes with Europe on high terror alert fol- tim in the Marseille incident was a woman in her year-old on leave from a psychiatric hospital lowing last week’s car ramming attacks in north- 40s who was waiting alone for a bus. was arrested at the Eiffel Tower after bursting eastern Spain. The vehicle in Marseille first drove past security shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is at speed towards a bus stop in the city’s northern Several attacks thwarted Greatest”). Police initially treated that case as 13th district at around 9:00 am (0700 GMT), hit- Police sources said the driver, who is in his a criminal affair but it was later upgraded to ting a woman who was rushed to hospital with mid-30s, was a petty criminal with a history of an anti-terror investigation after he said dur- MARSEILLE: A white sheet is erected as a body of a victim is evacuated to a waiting ambu- serious pelvis injuries. stealing cars. The vehicle was traced to the city’s ing questioning that he had wanted to kill a lance while French forensic police officer search the site following a car crash yesterday, in The driver of the stolen van then continued to Old Port district, where the driver was arrested. soldier. — AFP the southern Mediterranean city. — AFP .