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14 killed, 130 people injured in Catalonia attacks- UPDATE

14 people were killed and 100 were injured after a van ran into pedestrians in Barcelona. Within hours, two suspects were in custody. Another similar attack took place hours after the first one, in the town of Cambrilis, injuring dozens. Spain will hold three days of national mourning until midnight on Sunday. 

UPDATE: According to Spanish press, the driver of the white van is among the five attackers killed in the shootout with police forces. The information has not yet been confirmed by state officials.

UPDATE: Catalonia’s leaders said on Friday that deadly attacks in Barcelona and another town in the northeastern Spanish region would not affect their plan to hold an October referendum on breaking away from the rest of the country.

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UPDATE: Secretary Rex Tillerson confirms one American dead in Barcelona attack.

UPDATE: Catalan Police Chief Josep Lluis Trapero said, according to the Guardian, that the driver of the van that hit pedestrians in Barcelona has yet to be identified. He also stated that the five attackers shoot in Cambrilis have all been taken down by one police officer.

The men taken into custody are between 21 and 34 years old and they had no history of terror-related activities.

Trapero also said that the driver of the van could be part of the five attackers killed in the shootout with the police but nothing was yet certain. The unfolding of the events suggests that the attacks were planned for some time.

UPDATE: Police confirms witness reports that the vests used by the Cambrils attackers were fake and packed with cans. Also, three of the four men arrested in relation with the terror attacks are form Morocco and one is a Spanish national.

UPDATE: Prime Minister Rajoy thanked the Spanish authorities that are working in this hard context and he said that everyone has to work together, to change and become a team in order to fight the danger of terrorism.

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UPDATE: Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday that Britain was looking into reports of a missing child with dual British nationality after a suspected Islamist militant killed 14 people and wounded scores of others in Barcelona.

“We do believe that a number of British nationals were caught up in the attack, and we are urgently looking into reports of a child believed missing who is a British dual national,” she said in a televised statement.

May also said that Britain would look carefully at the powers the police and security agencies needed to tackle the common threat from militant attacks.

UPDATE: Police confirms that another person has been arrested in relation with the Catalonia attacks. Four people have been taken into custody in connection with the two terror attacks.

UPDATE: The number of people injured in a van attack in Barcelona on Thursday afternoon and in a separate attack in the Catalan resort town of Cambrils stood at 130 on Friday, an emergency services spokesman said.

Seventeen were in a critical condition and another 30 were in a serious condition, the spokesman said.

Emergency services said in a statement that the dead and injured in the two attacks were of 34 different nationalities.

UPDATE: Spanish authorities believe there may have been eight people involved in a cell which carried out an attack in Barcelona on Thursday, and that the group had planned to use butane gas canisters, a judicial source with knowledge of the investigation said on Friday.

Catalan government official Joaquim Forn also told local radio earlier on Friday that it was possible that attackers had meant to use canisters in the attack on Thursday in which a suspect drove a van at speed along a busy pedestrian street.

UPDATE: A third person has been arrested in connection with a suspected Islamist militant attack in the northeastern Spanish city of Barcelona on Thursday and another incident in Cambrils, Spanish police said on Friday.

“A third person has been detained in Ripoll in relation to the attacks,” local Catalan police confirmed on Twitter.

UPDATE: Twenty-six French citizens were injured in Thursday’s attack in Barcelona, with at least 11 of them in serious condition, the French Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

The statement added that French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian would visit Barcelona later on Friday in order to visit those victims, and that the French consulate in Barcelona was in contact with Spanish authorities.

UPDATE: President of Catalonia has declared three days of mourning.

UPDATE: Authorities say that 100 people were wounded in the attack.

UPDATE: Driss Oukabir, the 28-year-old Morocco national believed to have been arrested in connection with the attack has a record of domestic abuse according to El Pais. The young man moved to Barcelona after living in Marseilles. Spanish media reports that he had a NIE identity card, one that is issued to foreigners living in Spain.

Driss Oukabir’s Facebook page has been taken down. The man only had a couple of pictures on his profile, most of them selfies.

   See gallery

UPDATE: The number of those seriously injured has risen to 15. Catalan officials previously stated that some 80 people were wounded and 10 were is critical condition.

Of those 80 wounded, 42 sustained minor injuries, the authorities said on Twitter.

According to local media reports, the victims of the attack have been identified but their names will be made public only after their families will be notified.

UPDATE: One of the victims of the Barcelona attack is of Belgian nationality. The information was confirmed by the country’s deputy prime minister, on Twitter.

UPDATE: Barcelona will hold a minute of silence at noon on Friday.

UPDATE: Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in which a van ploughed into crowds in the Spanish city of Barcelona on Thursday, the group’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,” the agency said, referring to a United States-led coalition against the Sunni militant group

UPDATE: A driver ran over two police officers at a checkpoint in Barcelona following a van attack in the city centre, Catalan police said on Twitter.

Spanish media had earlier reported that at least one policeman was injured at the checkpoint.

It was not immediately clear whether the incident was linked to the van attack in the city centre, which killed at least 13 people on Las Ramblas avenue.

UPDATE: Catalan regional head says 80 people hospitalized after attack, around 12 dead. He also states that two people were arrested.

UPDATE: Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Thursday he would coordinate efforts to reinforce security.

Rajoy said on Twitter he was en route to Barcelona.

“Maximum coordination to arrest the attackers, reinforce security and attend to all those affected,” he said.

UPDATE: Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May and Angela Merkel were among the first European leaders to condemn the attack and express their solidarity with the Spanish people.

UPDATE: Police confirms that Driss Oukabir is the man who rented the van involved in the attack. His photo has been released to the media. Spanish journalists reports that the young man form Morocco was actually the one that carried out the attack but this information has not been confirmed.

Driss Oukabir
source: Twitter

UPDATE: According to La Vanguardia, one of the suspects has died in a shootout with police forces.

UPDATE: Interior minister Joaquim Forn said on Twitter that 13 people died and 50 were injured in the attack.

UPDATE: In response to media reports, Catalan police stresses that there is no hostage situation.

UPDATE: Catalan police confirms one suspect is in custody.

UPDATE: Mayor of London expressed solidarity with Barcelona victims. Donald Trump also tweeted about the incident saying that the United States condemns the attack and will do everything to help Spain.

UPDATE: A second van linked to an attack in Barcelona on Thursday has been found in the small town of Vic in Catalonia, local authorities there said on Twitter.

Police had cordoned off the area and were inspecting the vehicle, the city council said.

Spanish media earlier reported that a second van had been rented as a getaway car by attackers.

UPDATE: Unverified social media post shows a man being handcuffed by the police. Local media reports that one suspect is in custody but this information has not been confirmed. Same sources say that the police is looking for a second van, rented under the same name as the one used in the attack.

UPDATE: Police says are searching for one suspect. Interior minister did not confirm a hostage taking situations, neither in a restaurant or in church.

UPDATE: Media reports said the van had zigzagged at speed down the famous Las Ramblas avenue, a magnet for tourists.

“I heard screams and a bit of a crash and then I just saw the crowd parting and this van going full pelt down the middle of the Ramblas and I immediately knew that it was a terrorist attack or something like that,” eyewitness Tom Gueller told the BBC.

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

Mobile phone footage posted on Twitter showed several bodies strewn along the Ramblas, some motionless. Paramedics and bystanders bent over them, treating them and trying to comfort those still conscious.

Around them, the boulevard was deserted, covered in rubbish and abandoned objects including hats, bags and a pram.

“We saw a white van collide with people. We saw people going flying because of the collision, we also saw three cyclists go flying,” Ellen Vercamm, on holiday in Barcelona, told El Pais newspaper.

El Pais said the driver of the vehicle had fled on foot.

UPDATE: Catalan police confirms 32 injured, 10 in critical condition.

UPDATE: Unconfirmed information states that the van was rented and that police are searching for a second van.

UPDATE: TV3 says it now has official confirmation that thirteen people are dead and dozens injured.

UPDATE: At least 13 people were killed after a van ploughed into crowds in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas avenue in the city centre on Thursday, Cadena Ser radio station reported, citing police sources.

Other media including El Pais said there were at least 10 dead. A police spokeswoman could not immediately confirm the number of casualties.

UPDATE: Catalonia’s regional police said on Twitter that they had activated the protocol for attacks after a van mowed down people in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas tourist area, though they added that the motive behind the crash was not yet clear.

UPDATE: People are taking shelter in churches, shops and restaurants while the area remains closed.

UPDATE: Police confirms they are  searching for the driver of the van but according to witnesses two people exited the van after it ran into the kiosk. The two men were armed, the witnesses say, and they ran into a near-by street, where they were seen entering a restaurant.

UPDATE: Two people were killed after a van crashed into pedestrians near the Las Ramblas avenue in central Barcelona on Thursday, several local newspapers reported, though a police spokesman said he could not confirm the deaths.

El Periodico newspaper also said there between 20 to 25 injured, citing police sources.

The police spokesman did not confirm whether the crash was being treated as a terrorist attack.

UPDATE: Two armed men have entrenched themselves in a bar in Barcelona’s city centre after a van mowed down dozens of people, El Periodico newspaper reported on Wednesday.

El Periodico reported gunfire in the area of La Boqueria Market, although it did not cite the source of the information.

It was not immediately clear that the men were the drivers of the van.

UPDATE: According to some reports, there are 20 injured but police sources still say that the number of wounded is yet unknown.

Witnesses say that they saw several people bleeding on the ground and that the car drove through the crowd until it hit a kiosk. Strollers were left on the scene, local media reports.

The driver has fled on foot, the authorities say.

UPDATE: Catalonia’s TV3 station reported two dead and several injured.

UPDATE: Spanish PM Rajoy says that he is in contact with all authorities and that the first priority is attending to the victims.

UPDATE: Local media reports that two armed men entered a Turkish restaurant near the site of the crash and are holding hostages.

UPDATE: A van crashed into dozens of people in the centre of Barcelona on Thursday and several people were injured, police in the Spanish city said.

El Pais newspaper said the driver of the vehicle had fled on foot after mowing down dozens of people.

While full details of the incident were not immediately clear, since July 2016 vehicles have been used to ram into crowds in a series of militant attacks across Europe, killing well over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.

In recent weeks, threatening graffiti against tourists has appeared in Barcelona, which draws at least 11 million visitors a year.

In one video released under the slogan “tourism kills neighbourhoods”, several hooded individuals stopped a tourist bus in Barcelona, slashed the tyres and spray-painted the windscreen.

UPDATE: Police confirms that a white van hit the pedestrians.

UPDATE: Local media sources say that the driver has fled the scene.

UPDATE: Catalan emergency services said on Wednesday after a van crash in Barcelona that they had requested that metro and train stations be closed in the area close to the Las Ramblas avenue in the city centre.

Local police said that a van had mowed down dozens of people in the busy tourist area, injuring several of them.

There were several injured in a “massive crash”, police said on Twitter. Catalan emergency services said people should not go to the area around Placa Catalunya.

Police are asking metro and train stations near the area to be shut down.

Reuters

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