POLICE have shot dead the van driver behind the Barcelona terror attack, authorities in Catalonia said.
Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, was gunned down yesterday after being cornered in Subirats, about 30 miles west of Barcelona. The Moroccan was wearing a fake explosives belt and shouted “Allahu Akbar” before being killed, according to local reports.
Police said eight suspected terrorists connected to the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils are now dead, while four suspects are in custody.
At least two extremists died on Wednesday in an explosion at a house in Alcanar, where explosives were being prepared, while six were killed by police.
Thirteen innocent people died and more than 100 were injured on Thursday when a van ploughed into pedestrians in Las Ramblas, a busy tourist area of Barcelona.
Joaquim Forn, head of home affairs in Catalonia’s regional government, said yesterday that “everything indicates” Abouyaaqoub was behind the wheel.
Police said he stole a car and killed its owner as he made his getaway after fleeing the carnage in Las Ramblas on foot.
He had been the only at-large member of the 12-strong terror cell behind the attacks in Barcelona on Thursday and in the seaside town of Cambrils early on Friday.
One person was killed in the Cambrils attack, in which terrorists wearing fake suicide belts drove an Audi A3 into pedestrians, bringing the death toll to 15.
Police said Abouyaaqoub walked around Barcelona for about 90 minutes after the van attack before hijacking a Ford Focus, stabbing its owner, Pau Perez, and driving away with his body still inside.
Abouyaaqoub rammed the car through a police checkpoint on Friday night then dumped the vehicle two miles away, and had fled by the time officers found it with the body still inside.
Police believe the explosion prevented the terror cell from carrying out what would have been a deadlier attack.
Detectives are reportedly probing claims the cell was radicalised by an imam with links to the Madrid train bombers and an area in Belgium known as a hotspot for Daesh recruiting.
Spanish newspaper El Pais said Abdelbaki Es Satty was imam at one of the two mosques in Ripoll, north-east Spain, near the French border and around 62 miles from Barcelona.
All the main suspects are believed to have lived in the small town.
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