As police search for answers, here’s what we know so far.
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James Corden honored the victims of Thursday’s horrific terror attack in Barcelona and stressed the importance of not allowing these attacks to be accepted as the norm.
Police said Thursday that one of the arrested suspects in the Barcelona attack was a Spaniard born in Melilla, a Spanish territory on Morocco’s north coast, and the other a Moroccan named as Driss Oukabir.
The initial investigation points to an extremist cell of at least 12 people: Five who died in Cambrils, three who were arrested, the at-large driver and three more suspects, according to Spanish daily newspaper El Pais. Police in Spain say that attacks in Barcelona, Cambrils had been prepared some time ago. A police vehicle was damaged and an officer was among the six people injured.
Police said the suspects were carrying bomb belts, which have been detonated by the force’s bomb squad.
Spanish authorities said the back-to-back vehicle attacks – as well as an explosion earlier this week in a house elsewhere in Catalonia – were related and the work of a large terrorist group.
Citizens of 24 countries were among those killed and injured in Barcelona including one Belgian national confirmed to have died.
“Tonight, Britain stands with Spain against the evil of terrorism”, she said in a statement. A third man was arrested in the town of Ripoll on August 18.
Thousands of people including Spain’s king and prime minister have held a minute of silence for the victims of the attacks. “I am not afraid!” the crowd chanted in Catalan amid applause.
“I am not afraid!”
The news came hours after police launched a manhunt for the driver of a van who ploughed into crowds of people on one of Barcelona’s busiest thoroughfares, killing 13 people and injuring 100. Pope Francis said the attack is a “very grave offense to the Creator”.
Police shot dead five terror suspects at the scene, just 74 miles south of Barcelona.
Seventeen were in a critical condition and another 30 were in a serious condition, the spokesman said.
France appears to have the most injured in the attack. Two with slight injuries were Taiwanese. The father was unhurt but is in shock, Greek officials said.
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It comes after the secretary general of the Spanish Bishops Conference, Bishop Jose Gil Tamayo, released a statement on Twitter saying: ‘We follow with concern and prayers the situation of victims of the mass trampling in Las Ramblas.
