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SPAIN-ATTACK-INVESTIGATION
Mastermind of 2017 Barcelona attacks still on the run: report
MADRID, Aug 2, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The suspected mastermind of last year’s
jihadist attacks in Barcelona and a nearby seaside resort is still on the run
in Europe, a Spanish newspaper reported Thursday.
Investigation sources told Barcelona-based daily El Periodico that “the
terrorist has been localised, he changes country regularly” and “remains in
contact with other (radical) groups”.
Previously a Moroccan iman, Abdelbaki Es Satty, believed to have
radicalised many of the youths who carried out the twin attacks in August
2017, was presented by the authorities as the man who dreamt up and planned
the attacks.
But the paper said now security forces believe the iman “was the link with
the intellectual author of the attacks, who was ‘in a city in the centre of
Europe’ at the time.”
The sources did not give the nationality or the age of the suspected
mastermind of the attacks, and did not say if he had lived at any point in
Spain.
Contacted by AFP, a spokeswoman for the regional Catalan police force, the
Mossos d’Esquadra, refused to comment on the El Periodico report, saying
“everything concerning the investigation into the international connections”
of the jihadist cell that carried out the attacks was confidential.
The iman was killed during an accidental explosion a day before the attacks
at a house in Alcanar, a town located some 200 kilometres (125 miles) from
Barcelona, where the group was making bombs.
A total of 16 people were killed when a van drove into crowds on the
popular Las Ramblas boulevard in the heart of Barcelona and in a knife attack
in the nearby resort of Cambrils.
The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The six youths of Moroccan origin, aged 17 to 24, who carried out the
attacks were all killed by police.
It was the deadliest jihadist strike in Spain since March 2004, when
Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191
people.
BSS/AFP/MRI/1755 hrs