Spain's Turn Once Again in Revolving Terrorist Attacks
"[The killings represent a] savage terrorist attack. [Spaniards] are not just united in mourning, but especially in the firm determination to beat those who want to rob us of our values and our way of life."
"Unfortunately, Spaniards know the absurd and irrational pain that terrorism causes. We have received blows like this in recent years but we also know that terrorists can be beaten."
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy
"London, Brussels, Paris and some other European cities have had the same experience. It's been Barcelona's turn today."
Carles Puigdemont, president, government of Catalonia
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| Credit AP -- the local evening paper says it all |
Migrants in their tens of thousands are crossing from Morocco to Spain. In a 24-hour period a surge of arrivals through the growing sea route to Europe saw close to 600 migrants rescued. People were extracted from 15 overcrowded rafts by the Spanish coast guard in a one-day period; 424 in the Gibraltar Strait, and 169 close to Alboran, an island between Spain and Morocco. The International Organization for Migration has issued a warning that Spain is on track to overtake Greece as the new gateway to Europe.
Over eight thousand migrants have taken the Morocco-Spain route since the beginning of 2017 in comparison with the similar period last year that saw 2,500 taking the route. That situation is juxtaposed with another set of incidents of fairly lethal proportions in jihadist terrorist activities committed by Moroccans in Spain, or rather Catalonia, set to undergo a separation referendum. It would seem that American intelligence alerted their Spanish counterparts to an impending terrorist attack in Catalonia and somehow the alert failed to make its way to Barcelona.
Evidently, and obviously, tension exists between Spain and aspiring sovereign Catalonia. Intelligence shared between foreign and domestic intelligence agencies is not being shared between domestic intelligence agencies. And an obvious cell, the size and extent of which is as yet unknown, of Moroccan jihadis which Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant lays claim to representing them, had planned a series of almost simultaneous attacks in Spain.
Catalonia police, in the aftermath of the Barcelona attack, foiled another one in Cambrils, a city nearby, killing five suicide-belt-equipped terrorists in the process, which took the life of a Spanish civilian in the wrong place at the right time. But they had managed to avoid another tragedy when officers "shot down the perpetrators" to "respond to a terrorist attack". Eight hours earlier, thirteen people were killed when a driver of a van (himself now dead after a manhunt) deliberately ran down throngs of tourists on a historic street, and injured another hundred, fifteen left in critical condition.
There were two arrests in the hours after Las Ramblas was placed in lockdown as hundreds of police with hand guns and automatic rifles took part in a manhunt, while ordering stores, cafes and public transport to shut down. One Spanish national from the Mediterranean seafront town of Melilla in North Africa was arrested, along with a Moroccan, neither identified as the driver of the van, who would elude capture for days. A gas explosion in Alcanar that killed one man has been linked to the Barcelona attack, and is where other arrests were made.
This is by no means Spain's only lethal brush with Islamic jihad. Thirteen years earlier 192 people were killed in co-ordinated assaults by al-Qaeda-linked suicide bombers on commuter trains in Madrid. Since then, close to 200 jihadists have been detected and arrested. In the search for the perpetrator and his colleagues, another attacker was shot and killed by police after the vehicle he was driving was used to strike two police officers at a blockade on Barcelona's outskirts.
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| Credit EPA The attack, the latest in a series of vehicle rammings across Europe in recent years, caused panic on the streets of Spain's largest city and drew condemnation from world leaders. |
Labels: Immigration, Jihad, Morocco, Refugees, Spain, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 18, 2017
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