IS claimed responsibility for Barcelona terror attack

A van driver ploughed into crowds of pedestrians on Barcelona’s most popular street in broad daylight on Thursday, killing 13 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

Police announced the arrest of two suspects, identified as a Spaniard and a Moroccan, but said the driver was still on the run.

Hours later in Cambrils, a city 120 kilometres south of Barcelona, police said e they shot dead “four suspected terrorists” and left another injured in a “possible terrorist attack.”

The incident in Cambrils took place in the early hours of Friday, but police gave no further details, nor did they mention whether the shooting was linked to the Barcelona attack.

Witnesses in Barcelona told of scenes of chaos and horror, with bodies strewn along the famous Las Ramblas boulevard as other people fled for their lives, screaming in panic.

The rampage in a city hugely popular with tourists from around the world is the latest in a wave of attacks in Europe where vehicles have been used as weapons of terror.

As world leaders united in condemning the carnage, the IS propaganda agency Amaq claimed that it was carried out by “soldiers” from the jihadist group.

“We’re united in grief,” Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a televised address after rushing to Barcelona, the biggest city in Catalonia, a region in Spain’s northeast whose separatist governement is defying Madrid.

“Above all we’re united in the firm intention to defeat those who want to take our values and way of life from us.”

Regional interior minister Joaquim Forn said 13 people had died and another 100 were injured in what police were treating as a “terrorist attack”, warning that the death toll could rise further.

There were at least 18 nationalities among the victims who came from countries as varied as France, Venezuela, Australia, Ireland, Peru, Algeria and China, according to Spain’s civil protection agency.

Belgium said one of its citizens had died in the Las Ramblas assault, while The Hague said three Dutch were injured and a Greek diplomat reported three nationals had been wounded—a woman and her two children.

‘Whole street started to run’

Las Ramblas is one of Barcelona’s busiest streets, lined with shops and restaurants and normally packed with tourists and street performers until well into the night.

“When it happened I ran out and saw the damage,” local shop worker Xavi Perez told AFP.

“There were bodies on the ground with people crowding round them. People were crying. There were lots of foreigners.”

Footage broadcast on Spanish television showed a white van, its front crushed, abandoned by its driver on a road surrounded by police cars.

Tom Gueller, who lives on a road next to Las Ramblas said he saw the vehicle speeding along the boulevard.

“It wasn’t slowing down at all. It was just going straight through the middle of the crowds in the middle of the Ramblas,” he told BBC radio.

Source: AFP