Police raid Barcelona attacker’s home

The mother of fugitive Barcelona terrorist Younes Abouyaaqoub called on her son to hand himself in.

Abouyaaqoub is believed to have been behind the wheel of the white van that mowed down hundreds of pedestrians on Las Ramblas, killing 13 and injuring more than 100.

Anti-terror police say that the 22-year-old may have escaped their clutches by walking over the Pyrenees mountains to France.

He is the only member of the 12-strong jihadi terror gang to remain at large and has become Europe’s most wanted man.

But today his heart-broken mother Ghanno Gaanimi urged him to give himself up.

Spanish police officers control vehicles as they cross the Spanish-French border between La-Jonquera northern Spain, and Le-Perthus, southern France

Spanish police are hunting Younes Abouyaaqoub, left, although they have already arrested a number of other suspects, including this man, right, who has not yet been identified publicly

Abouyaaqoub was seen on footage from security cameras of a bank in Ripoll, Spain, a day before the attack in Barcelona

Abouyaaqoub’s heart-broken mother Ghanno Gaanimi urged him to give himself up on Sunday

She said: ‘He must go to the police, he must hand himself in. He is better off in prison than being dead. It’s wrong to kill people. I am not to blame for this.’

Abouyaaqoub’s cousin added that her family is ‘broken with pain’.

‘This has shocked us like everyone,’ she added. ‘We had no idea this was about to happen. They’re such normal kids. They had such a normal life. Islam is a religion of peace and love. Islam does not tell us to kill.’ 

Meanwhile, heavily armed police burst into a home in the sleepy village of Manlleu this morning as part of a desperate bid to track down the killer.

Uniformed officers from two Spanish police forces assisted the anti-terrorist squad, securing the entrance to his apartment home and the surrounding streets.

Anti-terror police say that the 22-year-old may escaped their clutches by walking over the Pyrenees mountains to France

Abouyaaqoub, who is believed to have fled the carnage in Las Ramblas on Barcelona’s Metro, has close friends and associates living in Manlleu, some 30 miles (50km) from his home in Ripoll, according to Spanish media.

The 22-year-old’s best friend was being interrogated by anti-terrorist police today as the authorities intensified their man-hunt for Europe’s most wanted man. 

Detectives entered the first-floor apartment in a modest building on the outskirts of the picturesque village at about 10.30am on Sunday.

It is the home of a Moroccan family, including a man in his 20s who is believed to be Abouyaaqoub’s best friend.

‘The police arrived all of a sudden about an hour ago,’ a neighbour told MailOnline. ‘They burst into the flat and have been inside ever since.

‘They are questioning the people who live there. It is a Moroccan family who live there. Among the family member is a young man in his 20s.’

Meanwhile anti-terrorist police continue their inquiries in Ripoll, home of at least three of the Las Ramblas killers – Moussa Oukabir, Mohamed Hychami and Younes Abouyaaqoub.

It is also home of Islamic preacher Abdelabaki Es Satty who has been linked to the terrorist outrage.

Salh el Karib and an unnamed man who was seen wearing a light blue cap have also been arrested in the town.  

Abouyaaqoub was born in Mrirt, a town of 35,000 people between Rabat and Fez in Morocco.

But he moved to Ripoll, the sleepy town in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees that has become the centre of the police investigation.

There he became friends with other members of the cell including Moussa Oukabir, 17, who is thought to have been shot dead in Cambrils in the early hours of Friday.

Meanwhile, heavily armed police burst into a home in the sleepy town village of Manlleu this morning as part of a desperate bid to track down the killer

Abouyaaqoub attended school in the town, which has a population of 11,000, around 500 of whom come from Morocco.

He has been described as being a quiet lad who mixed mostly with other Moroccan immigrants.

He has Moroccan nationality but has permission to reside in Spain.

A cousin of Abouyaaqoub has claimed the young terrorist was brainwashed by the local preacher, Abdelbaki Es Satty, whose role in the atrocity is being investigated by police.

She said he had been ‘manipulated’ by the preacher, adding: ‘We don’t know if they are alive or dead, we don’t know where they are.’

The cousin added: ‘They were normal kids, like anybody else in the world. They prayed, but there’s nothing wrong with following their religion.

‘They went on holiday. They haven’t been here much recently because they go to the beach in the summer.

‘We think they were brainwashed by somebody older. They were a proper group. They didn’t smoke or drink. They had cards. They were well dressed. They had money because they all work. The younger ones study.’

Abouyaaqoub had no police record for terrorism offences and was not on the radar of the Spanish security services.

Abouyaaqoub is the only member of the 12-strong jihadi terror gang to remain at large and has become Europe’s most wanted man. Pictured above, Spanish police officers control vehicles as they cross the Spanish-French border between La-Jonquera northern Spain, and Le-Perthus, southern France

French police are searching for a white Renault Kangoo van rented by Abouyaaqoub last Thursday and said to have crossed the border from Spain into France

Police believe Abouyaaqoub may have taken advantage of the chaos on the Ramblas to slip into a Metro station before eventually fleeing the country

Police believe Abouyaaqoub drove the van into the Ramblas, zigzagging down the promenade, after the original plan to blow up several targets with butane-gas bombs was thwarted when the cell’s bomb factory exploded last Wednesday.

He is now being hunted across Spain and an international arrest warrant has been issued.

French police are searching for a white Renault Kangoo van rented by Abouyaaqoub last Thursday and said to have crossed the border from Spain into France.

Police believe Abouyaaqoub may have taken advantage of the chaos on the Ramblas to slip into a Metro station and flee the scene.

He may then have killed motorist Pau Perez, 35, stabbing him once in the chest and stolen his car, which he used to smash through a police road block. 

Regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero admitted the 22-year-old suspected terrorist may have fled the country.

Speaking at a press conference, he said: ‘If we knew that he was in Spain and where, we would go after him. We don’t know where he is.’

Anti-terrorist police believe fugitive may walked over the Pyrennes mountains to escape to France.

The terror group also has links with extremists in another European country, police revealed although the refused to say which due to operational reasons.

A police spokeswoman said: ‘Younes Abouyaaqoub may have crossed into France.

‘He is unlikely to have done this in a vehicle [due to the police road blocks] but he could have walked or taken the train.

A Spanish police officers deploys a ‘spike- strip’ as he controls vehicles with colleagues as they cross the Spanish-French border between La-Jonquera northern Spain, and Le-Perthus, southern France

Police believe Abouyaaqoub drove the van into the Ramblas, zigzagging down the promenade, after the original plan to blow up several targets with butane-gas bombs was thwarted when the cell’s bomb factory exploded last Wednesday

The terror group also has links with extremists in another European country, police revealed although the refused to say which due to operational reasons

‘The [Barcelona] terror group has links to another country in Europe but we do not want to say which for operational reasons.’  

A police document published by Spanish media said two alleged members of the group, Youssef Aallaa and Mohamed Hichamy, now both believed dead, had travelled to Zurich in December 2016.

Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger said Swiss police confirmed that at least one of the Barcelona suspects had been in Zurich in December 2016, although it said it was not yet possible to say if the suspects had any connections to Switzerland. An investigation of the visit was under way, it said. 

The towns of Ripoll and Manlleu are understood to be the focus of the manhunt.

The investigation is also focusing on a missing imam who police believe could have died in a massive house explosion on Wednesday.

Police believe Abdelbaki Es Satty radicalised the young men in the extremist cell, which may have accidentally blown up a house in the seaside town of Alcanar, the Associated Press reported.

Spanish interior minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said five members of the cell were shot dead, four were in custody and as many as two were killed in an explosion.

He said no new attacks were imminent, the country’s terrorist threat alert will be maintained at level four, and security at popular events and tourist sites around the country will be reinforced. 

Catalan authorities said they have identified some of the victims of the attack in Barcelona as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Spanish-Argentine and American.

The victim of the second assault in Cambrils has been identified as a Spanish woman.

People gather around a makeshift memorial on top of the Joan Miro mosaic in Las Ramblas Barcelona terror attack, aftermath 

Family members and government officials have said a Belgian and a Canadian are also amongst the dead following the attack in Barcelona.

On Friday it emerged another suspect, Moussa Oukabir, who is thought to have rented the van, was among five men shot dead as they launched a second attack in the coastal town of Cambrils.

The teenager, said to be 17 or 18 years old, is suspected of using his brother’s documents to hire the vehicle that ploughed through pedestrians in the tourist hotspot on Thursday evening.

He reportedly died along with Said Aallaa, 19, and Mohamed Hychami, 24, who were part of a group that mounted a similar attack in Cambrils that left one woman dead and six people injured.  

A top Spanish police official says those behind the attacks on pedestrians had stored more than 100 gas tanks and explosive ingredients at a house in Alcanar that they accidentally blew up.

Police official Josep Lluis Trapero told reporters at a news conference Sunday that the radical cell of 12 people ‘had planned one or more attacks with explosives’ in Barcelona. The cell rented three vans and also used a car and motorcycle.

He said ingredients of the explosive TATP, which has been used by Islamic State extremists in other attacks, were found at the home in Alcanar that was destroyed Wednesday, along with more than 100 butane gas tanks. 

He said: ‘That makes us think this is the place where they were preparing the explosives.’ 

The attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils took place around eight hours apart on Thursday afternoon and in the early hours of Friday.

THE TERROR CELL: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR 

Spanish authorities believe the two attacks were the work of a jihadi terror cell of between eight and 12 individuals, which has now been ‘dismantled’, according to the Spanish government. 

They were stockpiling canisters of deadly butane gas at an address in Alcanar, 120 miles south of Barcelona, when the house exploded shortly before midnight on Wednesday, killing one and injuring 16. 

It has also emerged that forensics experts found acetylene at the bomb factory – a chemical compound favoured by Islamic State bomb-makers. Arrest warrants were issued on Friday for four named individuals, although three of them were later confirmed to be dead.

Two of the terror cell are believed to have died in an explosion at a home in Alcanar, 120 miles from Barcelona. It is believed plotters were stockpiling deadly butane gas to use in the attack

Suspected terror cell members:

DEAD: Moussa Oukabir – Believed to have rented the truck used in the Las Ramblas attack. He was among the five killed in Cambrils in the early hours of Friday morning. An arrest warrant for him had earlier been issued.

DEAD: Said Aallaa – The 18-year-old was from the village of Ribes de Freser. He is one of four cell members identified by Spanish police, and his death was confirmed on Friday evening. His brother Mohamed has reportedly been arrested, but it is not known if he was one of the plotters.

DEAD: Mohamed Hychami – The 24-year-old lived in Ripoll, the same town as Oukabir.

Terrorists Moussa Oukabir, left, and Said Aalaa, right were shot dead by police

Sahal el Karib, left, and Mohamed Aalaa, right, have both been arrested 

WANTED: Younes Abouyaaqoub – Another suspect identified by police, the 22-year-old is also from Ripoll. An arrest warrant has been issued for him, and Spanish police confirmed on Friday evening that he is still at large.

WANTED:  Two more, as yet unnamed, suspects are wanted by anti-terror police, La Vanguardia reports.

DEAD: Moussa Oukabir, Said Aaalaa, Mohamed Hychami, Omar Hychami and Houssaine Abouyaaqoub – SADasdASD

Spanish police are currently hunting for Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22

DEAD: Names unconfirmed – It is possible three terror cell members died in an explosion in Alcanar on Wednesday, which has been linked to the two attacks. No details about him have been officially released. Initial reports suggest a second person could also have died in the blast, although this has not been confirmed. Youseff Aallaa and Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, right, are thought to have died in the blast. Police wrote on Twitter: ‘We work to determine if remains in Alcanar are a second corpse. We are working to determine if biological traces from Alcanar are human.’

ARRESTED: Unnamed – One alleged plotter was taken into custody in Alcanar, where the explosion happened. He is a citizen of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla.

ARRESTED: Two suspects of Moroccan origin. At this stage no further information has been released, but one was pictured being taken into custody in Ripoll. 

ARRESTED: Driss Oukabir – The older brother of Moussa, police issued a photo of the 28-year-old in the immediate aftermath of the Barcelona attack, saying he had rented one of the vans connected to the atrocity. He later handed himself in at a police station in Ripoll, claiming Moussa had stolen his ID documents. He denies being part of the terror cell.

Youseff Aallaa, left is believed to have died in an explosion while making a bomb alongside Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, right, 

Arrested: One of those being questioned by police is Driss Oukabir, whose picture was released in the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s atrocity. He later handed himself in to police, claiming his younger brother Moussa had stolen his ID documents in order to rent a van used in the attack