The Barcelona terrorists were plotting a far bigger atrocity – targeting hundreds of innocent victims – using a deadly homemade explosive known as the ‘Mother of Satan’, it emerged last night.
The 12-strong Islamic State cell intended to carry out horrific truck or van bombings at the Sagrada Familia basilica – Barcelona’s most famous landmark – and the city docks as well as Las Ramblas.
But a massive accidental blast on Wednesday destroyed their bomb factory in Alcanar, 120 miles south of Barcelona, killing at least one of the terrorists and throwing their plans into chaos.
Instead they launched a relatively low-tech attack using a van that killed 13 people and injured more than 130 on the packed Las Ramblas promenade in Barcelona on Thursday before a later attack in the early hours of Friday in the resort town of Cambrils.
Investigators sifting through the rubble in Alcanar yesterday found butane gas canisters – as well as traces of the deadly but unstable homemade explosive tri-acetone tri-peroxide, or TATP, which is about 80 per cent as strong as TNT.
Known as ‘Mother of Satan’, TATP was used in the Tube and bus bombers in London in July 2005 and the May attack this year at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. It was also used in the November 2015 Paris atrocity and the March 2016 Brussels bombings.
TATP is easy to make from over-the-counter items available in any pharmacy, but it is notoriously difficult to control.
Tributes: Police immediately cordoned off the city’s broad avenue and ordered stores and nearby Metro and train stations to close after the attack
It is harder to detect than traditional explosives and was taken on to an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami by failed British ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid in 2001.
His plot was thwarted when a flight attendant spotted him trying to light a fuse to the explosives in his shoes and other passengers subdued him.
One reason TATP is difficult to detect is because it does not contain nitrogen, a key component of homemade ‘fertiliser’ bombs that security scanners are now adept at finding.
One expert described making TATP as being ‘as easy as baking a cake’. However, another added: ‘But it’s easy to blow yourself up while you make it.’
More than 20 butane gas canisters were found intact in the Alcanar wreckage. They would have provided a powerful accelerant following any initial terror attack using TATP.
Major Josep Lluis Trapero, head of Catalonia police, said: ‘The terrorists were preparing one or several attacks in Barcelona and an explosion in Alcanar stopped this as they no longer had the material they needed to commit attacks of an even bigger scope.’
Security experts believe the gang, now unable to use the explosives as planned, decided to hire a lorry like the one used to devastating effect in the Nice atrocity two years ago, when 86 people were killed and more than 400 injured.
Mourners light candles at a memorial tribute of flowers, messages and candles to the victims
But the Barcelona terrorists were forced to change to a smaller van after they were refused permission to rent a heavy vehicle because they did not have the correct driver’s licence.
One expert warned last night of a wave of copycat killings in the wake of the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks.
On Friday, a knifeman stabbed two people to death in the streets of Turku, Finland. The teenage suspect is Moroccan, just like the Barcelona terrorists. Two people were in a serious condition and several wounded after a similar attack in Russia yesterday.
Raffaello Pantucci, a terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute, said: ‘The biggest worry now is that when you get an attack, you get a spate of copycat attacks in other cities and countries straight away, like stabbings. We’ve seen events in Finland and Russia this weekend. So how do you prepare for these kind of attacks?
Stills from video shot by British tourist Fitzroy Davies show chaos as the terrorist, left, taunts police then, right, is targeted by marksmen who take him down from just feet away
‘Also, there is now renewed fears that the North Africa region has become a major hub for terrorists. Intelligence experts have feared that for a while but now there is renewed interest in this area as politicians are taking an interest in it. That area is problematic as there are ungoverned spaces there, and also there are governments that seem to be unable to control the terror threats in their countries.’
A British explosives expert said last night that hundreds of tourists would have been killed in Barcelona had the jihadis been able to detonate their huge homemade bomb as originally planned.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton- Gordon, who commanded the British Army’s specialist chemical and nuclear warfare regiment, described the fact that the terrorists’ plans were thwarted as a ‘huge stroke of luck’.
Col de Bretton-Gordon said: ‘The house [at Alcanar] was razed to the ground by the blast, which gives us an indication of its power.
The aftermath of the Las Ramblas attack is seen in an aerial view for the first time in this exclusive picture, taken by Briton John Ward from his balcony, just minutes after the terror atrocity. The picture shows: (1) An injured pedestrian being attended to. (2) A body amid the scattered papers of a news-stand. (3) A casualty wrapped in an emergency foil blanket. (4) Medics tending a badly injured person next to the clearly damaged terrorists’ van. (5) Another covered body; (6) A victim caught up in the horror
Living in fear… Now the barriers go up: Concrete barriers were being put up at resorts across Spain last night. Our picture shows blocks on the promenade at Cambrils, where five terrorists were shot dead
‘Had this incident not occurred, the terrorists would in all likelihood gone through with their bid to set off around 20 gas cylinders in the centre of Barcelona.
‘That would have caused a huge blast, with possibly hundreds killed and wounded by its force and the dissemination of shrapnel from the exploding cylinders and the vehicles used to transport them. For that to go off in a crowded area would have been truly horrific.
‘Thankfully, how this sequence of events played out proves the jihadis are still lacking the expertise to do what they’d like to.
‘They’ve also shown their hand and the security services should gain some vital intelligence.
‘Just how they got hold of the TATP plastic explosive is unclear. Personally I doubt they had the skill to make it – more likely they purchased it illegally or stole it in Spain. It could have been smuggled back from the Middle East but the explosive has a limited shelf-life and is rather unstable to transport over long distances.’
‘I saw the Cambrils knifeman die in a hail of 15 bullets’: British judo star is hit in the left foot by a stray shot as he sees terrorist gunned down
By Andrew Young in Cambrils and Michael Powell in London
Winston Gordon, 40, who has competed for Team GB in three Olympic Games, was hit in the left foot by a stray shot as marksmen gunned down the knife-wielding fanatic
A British judo star has described the dramatic moment he saw armed police bring down a marauding terrorist with a hail of 15 bullets right in front of shocked holidaymakers.
Winston Gordon, 40, who has competed for Team GB in three Olympic Games, was hit in the left foot by a stray shot as marksmen gunned down the knife-wielding fanatic.
Last night Mr Gordon told how the terrorist – wearing what appeared to be an explosive vest over his orange shirt, but which was later discovered to be fake – mocked officers.
Mr Gordon was having a drink at 1am at a Cambrils bar when five terrorists struck, driving an Audi A3 car into a police patrol.
Four were shot at the scene but a fifth escaped and ran 200 yards ran towards the bar.
Recalling the moment, Mr Gordon said: ‘The cops pulled up in front of him and told him to stand still.
‘But he was still moving and they fired some shots. The guy started moving up and down again. Then there were more shots fired. He went down, but then he got back up. The police told him, “Stop, Stop” and they fired again.’
That was when Mr Roberts was injured.
‘Something ricocheted and hit my leg. I felt it straight away. It was like something just flew past my leg and cut me. It was just like I had been slashed.’ The terrifying confrontation in the early hours of Friday at the Spanish seaside town came hours after the atrocity in Barcelona.
Another British holidaymaker, Paige Baty, told how she saw an officer ‘flying through the air’ after being struck by the Audi as it hit a kerb and flipped over.
As she and other panic-stricken tourists ran for their lives, the attackers clambered from the overturned car and slashed passers-by with knives before a hero policeman brought four of them down in a hail of bullets.
The fifth attacker stabbed seven people, one of whom died, before he was shot dead outside the bar where Mr Gordon was with friends.
The incident was filmed on a smartphone by Mr Gordon’s friend Fitzroy Davies. It shows the terrorist defiantly taunting police marksmen before he is felled by ten shots. He gets back to his feet before being finished off in a further hail of bullets.
Police said a 61-year-old Spanish woman was stabbed to death while six others, including a female police officer, were injured.
Miss Baty, 24, from Doncaster, told The Mail on Sunday she was 20 yards from the Audi when it mounted the pedestrianised street and rammed the police officer.
Mourners pay respects at a memorial tribute of flowers, messages and candles to the victims on Barcelona’s historic Las Ramblas promenade
The nightclub manager, who was on the last night of her holiday with boyfriend Matthew Haynes, 26, said: ‘We were standing about 20 yards away when the black car sped forwards and knocked over a police officer. I saw the policeman fly through the air.
‘I was frozen with fear but Matt shouted “Run!” Everyone around us started running and screaming – it was absolute chaos. I thought we were going to die. It was petrifying.’
She and Mr Haynes ran to the marina jetty and dived into a boat to hide. The couple lay there for 90 minutes, shaking with fear and listening to gunfire unsure whether the shots were being fired by police or marauding terrorists.
Miss Baty added: ‘There were loads of really loud gunshots. I thought a gunman had got out of the car and was shooting at people. All I could think was my mum and dad were going to have to get our bodies flown home. I thought we were going to die, the terrorists would catch us hiding and kill us.
‘We kept as silent and still as possible. We were looking into each other’s eyes. I thought we are going to die and I’m not going to speak to my mum and say goodbye.’