Giannis Papanikos / AP
A woman is comforted as crowds flee from the scene after a white van jumped the sidewalk in the historic Las Ramblas district of Barcelona, Spain, crashing into a summer crowd of residents and tourists Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017. According to witnesses, the white van swerved from side to side as it plowed into tourists and residents.
Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 | 9:30 p.m.
Spain was hit by its worst terrorist attack in more than a decade Thursday, when a van driver plowed into dozens of people enjoying a sunny afternoon on one of Barcelona’s most famous thoroughfares, killing at least 13 people and leaving 80 bloodied on the pavement.
Hours later, the Catalan police said they foiled a second van attack, in the seaside town of Cambrils, 70 miles to the south, fatally shooting four people. A fifth died later of wounds, the police said. The suspects appeared to be wearing explosive belts, according to Spanish news reports. Six civilians and one police officer were injured during the episode, the Catalan emergency services said.
The Barcelona attack was at least the sixth time in the past few years that assailants using vehicles as deadly weapons have struck a European city.
The police cordoned off the Plaza de Cataluña and Las Ramblas in the heart of Barcelona, both tourist destinations, and began a chaotic pursuit for the attackers.
Two people were later arrested, including a Moroccan man whose identification documents had been used to rent the van. But the Barcelona police said neither was believed to be the driver, who escaped on foot remained at large Thursday night.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Barcelona assault, which shattered a peaceful afternoon in one of Europe’s most picturesque cities. President Donald Trump and other Western leaders quickly condemned the attack and pledged cooperation.
In a sign of the confusion that prevailed after the Barcelona attack, local television reported one assailant, armed with a rifle, had run into a restaurant and was besieged by the police. The police said the entire incident was false.
Witnesses described people screaming and running for their lives as the van driver wove back and forth just after 5:30 p.m., apparently trying to hit as many people as he could. Police officers swept through the area near Las Ramblas, a wide boulevard with a large pedestrian section, moving people out of the area.
Videos taken by witnesses posted online showed men, women and children motionless on the ground amid broken umbrellas and chairs, in the shade of trees, many bleeding profusely, while paramedics and friends knelt to comfort them as police sirens wailed.
Whitney Cohn, a mathematics teacher from Montebello, New York, was walking along the mall with her husband and two daughters, on the way back to her hotel after visiting a museum, when the van came careening through the crowd, throwing people aside like dolls as screams pierced the air. She grabbed her daughters and started running. “It was flying,” Cohn said in an telephone interview from a nearby restaurant. “The van missed us by a sec.”
Other witnesses described chaos as people dropped their belongings and fled as the van entered the mall and accelerated, hitting people indiscriminately, among them children, women and the elderly. Among the seriously injured was a 6-year-old girl hospitalized with a cerebral hemorrhage, an official at Vall Hebron university hospital said.
People streamed onto side streets, many of them weeping. “It was horrific,” said Sergi Alcazar, a 25-year-old photographer who arrived 10 minutes after the attack to find victims lying amid broken umbrellas, chairs and cafe tables.
Until Thursday, Spain had been spared from the recent wave of terrorist attacks in Europe — many involving vehicles plowing into crowds — claimed by extremists in France, Germany, Britain and elsewhere.
Keith Fleming, an American who lives just off Las Ramblas, told The Associated Press that he was watching television when he heard a noise, looked out over his balcony and “saw women and children just running and they looked terrified.”
Fleming said that the street was deserted, with the exception of police officers with guns drawn or in riot gear. “It’s just kind of a tense situation,” the AP reported him as saying. “Clearly people were scared.”
Maj. Josep Lluis Trapero, a senior police official in Spain’s Catalonia region, said at a news conference that the police were investigating a possible connection between the van attack and a gas explosion the previous night in Alcanar, a town south of the city, which killed one person and injured several others.
One person, a Spaniard from the Spanish territory of Melilla in Morocco, had been taken into custody in Alcanar, he said. A second man, identified as Driss Oukabar, a Morrocan citizen, was arrested in the northern Catalan town of Ripoll when he walked into a police station and reported his documents had been stolen.
Trapero said neither man appeared to be the driver of the van, which came to a stop near the city’s opera house. The driver escaped on foot, he said. “It was clearly a terror attack, intended to kill as many people as possible,” Trapero said.
A national police official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss on continuing investigation, said at least three vans had been rented under Oukabar’s name. As night fell, the Barcelona police were frantically searching for the two other vans, combing the streets and underground parking garages, the official said.
Facebook activated its safety-check feature for Barcelona, taxis were reportedly giving free rides to help people get out of the city center, and public transit was free in areas where it was still operating.
U.S. counterterrorism officials in Washington said they were in contact with the Spanish authorities to offer any assistance, but underscored that the investigation had just started.
Trump said on Twitter that the United States would “do whatever is necessary to help, telling Spaniards to “Be tough & strong, we love you!”
Pro-Islamic State accounts on the Telegram messaging service shared news of the attack. One channel, called “Expansion of the Caliphate,” posted video of the scene of the violence alongside a message in Arabic. “Terror is filling the hearts of the Crusader in the Land of Andalusia,” it said.
In the past year, the Islamic State has devoted resources to translating their channels and messages into Spanish.
Although countries like France and Britain have repeatedly been named in Islamic State propaganda urging followers to plan and stage attacks, Spain has been less in the cross hairs.
The country has, however, been a transit point for recruits of the militant group, both for those going to Syria and those returning. The Spanish police arrested nine people in April who they said may have been connected with deadly attacks in France and Spain.
The Barcelona attack appeared to follow the playbook of recent assaults in which attackers drove vehicles into crowded stretches of large European cities.
“While it’s not clear whether the attackers corresponded with ISIS prior to the operation, it’s clear that the methods used in the attack is something ISIS encouraged and incited over and again,” said Laith Alkhouri, a director in New York of the business-risk intelligence company Flashpoint.
Leaders of European countries and cities that have suffered attacks quickly expressed support and solidarity with Barcelona.
In Germany, which has been on alert for potential terrorist threats before the general election on Sept. 24, members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet expressed their solidarity with the Spanish people, following the news from Barcelona.
“I am deeply shaken by the terrible news from Barcelona,” said Thomas de Maizière, the country’s interior minister. “Once again, terror has shown its grotesque face.”
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, said on Twitter that Barcelona and Paris “are cities of sharing, love and tolerance. Such values are stronger than this despicable and cowardly terrorism.” Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said his city “stands with Barcelona against the evil of terrorism.”
