Younes Abouyaaqoub, the 22-year-old believed to had been the driver in Thursday’s deadly van attack in La Rambla Boulevard, Barcelona, was reportedly shot and killed by Spanish securiy forces on Monday, this according to Spanish police.
The police stated that security forces shot and killed Abouyaaqoub, who was wearing an fake explosive belt in the Spanish town of Subirats, 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of Barcelona. Before being killed, Abouyaaqoub reportedly yelled out, “Alahu Akbar!”
The Police’s statement detailing what they believe happened in the moments following the Barcelona attack: after ramming his truck into the crowd at La Rambla Boulevard, killing 13 people, Abouyaaqoub fled on foot and hijacked another vehicle, stabbing its driver to death. He then proceeded to drive the car with the dead body still in the vehicle, trying to hit policemen at a checkpoint, before exiting the car himself.
The car’s driver is Abouyaaqoub’s 14th victim, including the 13 who died in the attack at La Rambla. The car was later found abandoned, with the man’s body inside.
Moroccan-born Abouyaaqoub is the only one of 12 men who is still at large. His mother, Hannou Ghanimi, appealed at the weekend for her son to turn himself in, saying she would rather see him in prison than end up dead.
Photo: AP
Four people have been arrested so far in connection with the attacks: three Moroccans and a citizen of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla. They will be taken to the high court in Madrid, which has jurisdiction over terrorism matters
Abouyaaqoub lived in Ripoll, a town north of Barcelona, close to French border.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the Barcelona attack as well as a separate deadly attack hours later in the coastal resort town of Cambrils, south of Barcelona.
In Cambrils, a car crashed into passers-by and its occupants got out and tried to stab people. Five suspects were shot dead, while a Spanish woman died in the attack.
In the roughly seven hours of violence that followed the van’s entry into the pedestrian boulevard of La Rambla on Thursday afternoon, attackers killed 15 people: 13 on La Rambla, the Cambrils victim and the man in the hijacked car.
Of the 120 injured on La Rambla, nine are still in a critical condition in hospital.
Another two suspected plotters, including an imam thought by police to have helped radicalise his young conspirators, were killed late on Wednesday night in the Spanish town of Alcanar, hours before the attacks began, in what is believed to have been an accidental explosion.
Police chief Trapero said there was now “solid evidence” that the imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, was killed in the blast at a house in the town of Alcanar, south of Barcelona.
About 120 butane gas cylinders were found there. Police believe the pair was preparing a much larger attack with explosives, but the blast prompted the other militants to adopt a new, less elaborate plan.
Abouyaaqoub began showing more religiously conservative behaviour within the past year, according to family members in his native Morocco. He refused to shake hands with women during a visit to his birthplace in March, they said.
A screenshot of Abouyaaqoub, taken from a security camera (Photo: AP)
Abouyaaqoub’s brother El Houssaine and first cousins Mohamed and Omar Hychami were among those killed by police in Cambrils. They were all originally from the small Moroccan town of Mrirt.
Authorities have stepped up checks at Spain’s borders and also raided more homes overnight in Ripoll, a town close to France where many of the suspects in the 12-strong cell had lived.
Spanish political leaders from all the main parties met on Monday to review security measures as part of cross-party efforts to unite on anti-terrorist efforts, though no immediate decision was taken at the meeting.