The Islamic terrorist who drove a van down a pedestrian street in Barcelona on Aug. 17 that killed 13 people has reportedly been shot, according to police.
Catalonia police tweeted on Monday that they had shot and killed a man wearing a belt of explosives in Subirats, about 20 miles west of Barcelona.
Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, was the last of 12 suspects in a Spanish Islamic terror cell that carried out two attacks last week, killing 15 people total. The ISIS terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Four suspects have been taken into custody, five have been killed by police, and another two are believed to have died in a house in Alcanar, south of Barcelona, that was reportedly being used as a bomb factory. The house was leveled after explosives the cell was making unexpectedly detonated, authorities say.
Officials also said there were “strong indications” that an imam suspected of radicalizing the young men who carried out the attacks had died in that explosion. Police are seeking to establish whether the imam was involved in the March 2016 Brussels airport attack that killed 32 people, after discovering that he was in the country in the three months prior to the bombing.
Authorities believe the bombs in the house were to be used for a much larger attack involving large trucks, but that after the explosion, and their inability to rent large trucks, the men drove two smaller vehicles into crowds of people—one in Barcelona, and the other in the southern town of Cambrils.
Abouyaaqoub, a native of Morrocco, is believed to be the driver of a rented van that killed 13 as it plowed through people on the pedestrian street Las Ramblas in Barcelona.
Police say the airbags went off and he could not drive anymore, so he fled through a nearby market.
Authorities believed it was he that was captured in security camera footage wearing sunglasses walking through La Boqueria food market toward the city’s university district.
After that, police say he hijacked a car that was being parked, killing its driver, 35-year-old Pau Perez Villan.
Police said they tried to stop Abouyaaqoub by firing shots at the car in a neighborhood near the university, but he got away, running over a policewoman in the process, NBC reports.
The car was later found in the Sant Just Desvern area, about five miles from downtown Barcelona, where police say they lost all trace of him.
Abouyaaqoub’s mother had called for him to turn himself in, saying she preferred that he go to prison than to end up dead.
From NTD.tv
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