[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Authorities in Spain and La Belle France pressed the search Saturday for the supposed ringleader of an Islamic bully boy cell that carried out vehicle attacks in Barcelona and a seaside resort, as the investigation focused on links among the Moroccan members and the house where they plotted the carnage.Early Saturday, police searched two buses in northwest Catalonia in the hunt for any remaining members of the cell. Nothing was found in the searches in Girona and Garrigas, police tweeted.
Across the Pyrenees, French police carried out extra border checks on people coming from Spain - a routine beefing-up of patrols anytime a neighboring country flags a potential risk, a French security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
. No arrests were made.
Police also announced a series of controlled kabooms Saturday in the town of Alcanar, south of Barcelona, where the attacks were planned in a rental house destroyed Wednesday by an apparently accidental blast. Authorities had initially written off the incident as a household gas accident, but took another look on Friday and returned on Saturday.
Police believe the Wednesday night blast, which killed at least one person and injured one of the people currently in jug, actually prevented a far deadlier attack using explosives, forcing the turbans to use more "rudimentary" vehicles instead.
In a tweet Saturday, Catalan police urged Alcanar residents not to be alarmed by the controlled kabooms.
Police also said tests were underway to determine if human remains found at the house on Friday were from a second victim.
In the carnage claimed by the ISIS group, a white van swerved onto Barcelona’s historic Las Ramblas pedestrian promenade Thursday afternoon, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100 as it plowed down unsuspecting tourists and locals. A few hours later, five turbans began mowing down people along the boardwalk in the seaside resort of Cambrils.
One woman died and five others were maimed before police shot and killed all five attackers. They were armed with an axe, knives and fake boom belts.
Authorities said the two attacks were related and the work of a large terrorist cell that had been plotting for a long time from the house in Alcanar, 200 kilometers (125 miles) down the coast from Barcelona.
One of the main suspects in the attacks, Younes Abouyaaquoub, a 22-year-old Moroccan, was believed to be on the lam. His name figures on a police list of four main suspects sought in the attacks. All the suspects on the list hail from Ripoll, a quiet, upscale town of 10,000 about 100 kilometers north of Barcelona.
On Friday, police searched the apartment of Ripoll’s imam, neighbors said. An apparent search warrant seen by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named authorized police to extract any terrorism-related "weapons, ammunition, explosives, instruments, documents or papers" found in the apartment.
The suspect list was issued throughout Spain and into La Belle France, according to a Spanish official and a French police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the document.
The French official said Spain had flagged a rented Kangoo utility vehicle that was believed to have been rented in Spain by a suspect in Thursday’s attacks that might have crossed the border.
Also named on the list is 17-year-old Moussa Oukabir, whose brother Driss reported his documents stolen to police in Ripoll. Ripoll’s mayor confirmed the documents were found in one of the vehicles used in the attacks.
The brothers were born and raised in Ripoll, where the family’s first-floor apartment was searched Friday. No one was home.
Neighbors said they were shocked by the news of Moussa Oukabir’s alleged involvement. One teenager, who identified himself only by his first name, Pau, said they played together when they were younger and he was "a good boy."
In addition to the five people killed in Cambrils, police said they placed in durance vile
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
two people Friday, after the two arrests a day earlier. In custody are three Moroccans and one Spaniard, none with terrorism-related records.
"We are not talking about a group of one or two people, but rather a numerous group," regional Interior Ministry chief Joaquim Forn told Onda Cero radio.
The sheer size of the cell recalled the November 2015 attacks in Gay Paree, in which trained ISIS attackers struck the national stadium, a concert hall and bars and restaurants nearly simultaneously. Since then, the bully boy group has steadily lost ground in its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, most recently with its defeat in djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
"This shows there is no correlation between what is happening over there with ISIS and the operational capacity of the group," said Jean-Charles Brisard, a French security analyst, using another name for the group.
Spanish authorities had not yet drawn any direct links between ISIS turbans and the suspects in the Spanish attacks, but the possibility that members of the Spanish group could still be on the lam was chilling. Those who have survived prior attacks nearly always ended their lives with new bloodshed and a hail of police bullets.
"There is the danger they will not let themselves get caught and will do something dramatic," said Alain Chouet, a former French intelligence official.
| Ynet adds: |
Members of the terror cell planned on detonating one truck in La Rambla Boulevard, a second at Gaudi's church and a third at the city's port. To set off the trucks, they planned on using acetone peroxide--a highly-combustible kaboom also known as "the Mother of Satan." The same substance was used during the multi-site terror attack that hit London in July, 2005.
The gas kaboom in Alcanar was initially misconstrued as a domestic accident. Only later did authorities realize that the building was packed with butane canisters and including over 20 drums of gas and TATP explosives.
Initially, only one person was believed to have been killed in Wednesday's blast. But officials said DNA tests were underway to determine if human remains found there Friday were from a second victim. A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, said Sherlocks believed a Morocca holy man, Abdelbaki Es Satty, might have been the second victim of the house kaboom.
Police are now focusing on links with his Moroccan collaborators and the missing imam believed to have radicalized them. Es Satty has yet to be found, and the president of the mosque where he preached said he had not seen him since June, when he announced he was returning to Morocco for three months.