Alleged driver in Barcelona attack appeared to be wearing explosive belt--Police

Spanish authorities announced that Younes Abouyaaqoub, the suspected driver in a deadly vehicle attack in Barcelona that killed 13 people, was shot and killed Monday. He was wearing what appeared to be an explosive belt at the time, police said.

Earlier this morning, police named Abouyaaqoub as the driver of a van that plowed down Barcelona's crowded Las Ramblas promenade Thursday, killing 13 and injuring many more.

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Authorities say Abouyaaqoub escaped the scene on foot, then carjacked a vehicle, killing the driver, authorities said.

He then ran up against a roadblock south of Barcelona and abandoned the car in Sant Just Desvern, a town not far from the city, authorities said.

This is a breaking story. Please check back for updates.

Van Drives Into Barcelona Crowd Killing At Least One Person But Police Have Made Arrest

Update: Catalan police say they have arrested one man linked to the Barcelona van attack.

Earlier:
BARCELONA - A van plowed into crowds in the heart of Barcelona on Thursday and Spanish media reported at least 13 people were killed, in what police said they were treating as a terrorist attack. 

Police have found a second van connected to the crash in the Catalan town of Vic, local authorities said.

The death toll was reported by Cadena Ser radio, citing police sources. At least one person has been confirmed dead, Catalan police and the regional interior ministry said.






Authorities said they were searching for the driver of the van. According to Spanish newspaper El Periodico, two armed men were holed up in a bar in Barcelona's city center, and reported gunfire in the area, although it did not cite the source of the information. It was not immediately clear whether the incidents were connected.


A source familiar with the initial U.S. government assessment said the incident appeared to be terrorism, and a White House spokeswoman said President Donald Trump was being kept abreast of the situation.

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.
















TOURIST DRAW
Emergency services said people should not go to the area around Barcelona's Placa Catalunya, one of the city's main squares at the top of the Ramblas, and requested the closure of nearby train and metro stations. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he was in contact with authorities, and the priority was to attend to the injured.

The incident took place at the height of the tourist season in Barcelona, which is one of Europe's top travel destinations with at least 11 million visitors a year. Vehicles have been used to ram into crowds in a series of militant attacks across Europe since July 2016, killing well over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.

Witness Ethan Spibey told Britain's Sky News: "All of sudden it was real chaos. People just started running screaming, there were loud bangs. People just started running into shops, there was a kind of mini-stampede where we were, down one of the alleyways."

He said he had taken refuge with dozens of other people in a nearby church. "They've locked the doors because I'm not sure whether the person who may have done it has actually been caught, so they've locked the doors and told people just to wait in here."
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Barcelona is the capital of the wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia, which plans to hold a popular vote on Oct. 1 on whether it should secede from Spain. It is in dispute with the central government, which says the vote cannot go ahead because it is unconstitutional.

In recent weeks, threatening graffiti against tourists has appeared in Barcelona. In one video released under the slogan "tourism kills neighborhoods", several hooded individuals stopped a tourist bus in Barcelona, slashed the tyres and spray-painted the windscreen.

The attack was the deadliest in Spain since March 2004, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,800.

LIVE IN BARCELONA: Justin Bieber Punched a Fan Because He Touched His Car Window

One Justin Bieber fan found out the hard way why one should never, ever invade the singer’s personal space. Included in the category of personal space is the inside of a car containing said Biebs. On Tuesday, Justin was being driven to a stadium in Barcelona for his latest Purpose show when a fan ran up to the vehicle and tried to touch the “Son of God.”






According to this video obtained by TMZ, things did not end well for the fan.

The Belieber punch comes just off the heels of Justin’s plea to his fans to stop screaming during his shows because it’s “just so obnoxious.” He later wrote (and deleted) a letter on Twitter: “There’s going to be times where I say the wrong thing, because I’m human. But I don't pretend to be perfect and I hope to God that, you know, I don't say the right thing all the time because if that was the case then I'd be a robot, and I'm just, I'm not a robot. There's times when I get upset… times when I get angry, there's times when I'm going to be frustrated. But I'm always going to be myself on this stage."

On this stage and in moving vehicles.

Justin is slated to perform in Madrid and Lisbon before the end of the week.