Spain this week suffered the biggest Islamic State onslaught to be mounted in Europe since Nov/ 14, 2015, when the jiahdis murdered 140 people in Paris. The Spanish offensive claimed the lives of 14 civilians and 7 terrorists. More than 100 victims are in hospital, 20 with serious injuries.
The first signal came Wednesday night, Aug. 16, with two large explosions at a house in the Spanish town of Alcanar, 190km south of Barcelona. Inside, police found a dead woman, an injured man and 20 canisters of butane and propane gas. It was clearly a bomb workshop.
Thursday and Friday saw attacks in quick succession - first in Barcelona, where a van mowed down hundreds of people on the Las Ramblas Blvd, killing 13 and injuring up to a hundred; then early Friday in Cambrils, south of Barcelona, where five bomb-vested terrorists in a car managed to injure six civilians, one of whom, a woman, died later, and a police officer, before they were all killed in a shootout with the police.
Thursday and Friday saw attacks in quick succession - first in Barcelona, where a van mowed down hundreds of people on the Las Ramblas Blvd, killing 13 and injuring up to a hundred; then early Friday in Cambrils, south of Barcelona, where five bomb-vested terrorists in a car managed to injure six civilians, one of whom, a woman, died later, and a police officer, before they were all killed in a shootout with the police.
Their bomb belts when examined proved to be harmless fakes.
By then, it was obvious that the terrorist attacks which shook Catalonia for three days were orchestrated from a single control center, with dozens of armed terrorists, supported by as many abettors, at its disposal. Many are still at large and armed, and so the wave of violence may not be over.
The two suspects captured by the Catalan police in Barcelona are being pressed hard to give up information on future attacks and additional terror cells poised for action.
Earlier this month, British media disclosed the existence of the Al-Kharsha Brigade, set up by ISIS in Syria to train terrorists holding European passports for strikes in the continent’s cities. The disclosure was meant apparently to prepare the British public for a further upsurge of terror. READ MORE
