Terrorist attack in Barcelona

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Prime Minister speaking right now in Barcelona.

3 days of official nation-wide mourning. His speech is touching on the subject of being strong in the face of terrorism; asking for the unity of the population in front of the threat; praising the work of the police and paramedics; thanking other world leaders for their support; everything will be done to take the perpetrators to justice. Terrorism is a global threat and the answer to it has to be global. Now we are united in mourning, but we can also be united in determination. Spain knows well what terrorism is; we prevailed in the past, and we will prevail again.

Standard boilerplate, but needed nonetheless.

And now I am going to hit the sack. It is almost half past midnight here and I am crashing hard. I am tired. Will keep reporting from tomorrow if/when there are news.

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Thanks for keeping us posted. Much love.

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With the news about the linked explosion: yeah thank Christ it wasn’t worse. I’m thinking that accidentally blowing shit up made it inevitable that their terror cell was going to unravel so they went in for doing as much damage as possible as quickly as possible.

In other news I’ve just heard that the number of terror attacks worldwide has gone down. Some small crumb of comfort there.

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And now it appears there was a planned 2nd attack. BBC Breaking News:
Spanish police ‘stop second attack’ after 13 killed in Barcelona
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40971004

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From mossos’ twitter, it’s 5 terrorists captured in Cambrils; 2 were wounded, of which 1 has died. A policeman with light wounds.

There were several explosions but they were the TEDAX, mossos had warned about them in advance.

Not mentioned last night (well, it’s still night, 05:20): the strike which had been collapsing Barcelona’s airport was shut down by the workers themselves as soon as they heard of the incident.

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Watching the news here in the US, seeing more about the explosion and the prevented second attack. Lord. Thank you for keeping us posted, Nava and JoseB. Stay safe, and my prayers are with you, your loved ones, and your country.

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A third person detained in Ripoll, per mossos.

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Nava and JoseB, I thought of you both as soon as I heard the news. Glad you are okay, and sending prayers, good vibes, condolences to you, your friends and family, your countrymen and your country. Thank you for keeping us posted.

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BREAKING NEWS: Moussa Oukabir, the younger brother of Driss Oukabir (the person arrested yesterday in relation with the Barcelona attack), has been named as the individual driving the van that killed 13 and injured more than 100.

Moussa Oukabir is 17 or 18 years old, and is being actively sought by the police right now.

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Do terrorists have a particular interest in Spain because the Muslims were kicked out of Cordova in 1492, their last hold of Europe?

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Not Córdoba, 1492 was Granada. Note that that was prededed by 800 years and that there are 500+ years of subsequent border(s), including the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco and Spain still having a couple of footholds on the shores of Africa (Ceuta and Melilla).

There was a bit of news that when I first saw it I wondered if it was a typo. Nope, they’ve published the list. At first count there are people of 34 nationalities either wounded or dead.

Germany, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Morocco, Canada, China, Colombia, Romania, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Spain, United States, Philippines, France, England (I’m assuming it actually means the UK, I’m not going to ask a paramedic for political subtlety in foreign affairs), Grece, Holland, Taiwan, Honduras, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kuwait, Macedonia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Peru, Dominican Republic, Turkey.

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Thanks, Nava.

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I presume that’s someone, or a group of people, wounded who self identified as English.

Mid-August, Las Ramblas; that does look like they were straight up going for tourists. I spent quite a bit of time there in February people watching.

Hope all your friends and family are OK, Nava.

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Some sources apparently close to police have mentioned what appears to have been the original plan.

THIS IS NOT CONFIRMED - THIS IS NOT CONFIRMED - THIS IS NOT CONFIRMED

However, if this ends up being what really happened, then it definitely could have been MUCH worse than it was.

[SPECULATION SUPPOSEDLY BASED ON POLICE SOURCES]

OK. Apparently, the original plan (plan A) was to stuff a truck with explosives and detonate it somewhere with lots of people. Perhaps do the same Ramblas thing, only at the end, on top of the running over, there would have been a devastating explosion right in the center of Barcelona.

This Moussa Oukabir guy tries to rent a truck, but the rental company refuses, because he doesn’t have the proper type of driver’s license (or, rather, his brother doesn’t, given that apparently he was using his brother’s documents to do the rental).

Plan B: Instead of a truck, two smaller vans are rented. The plan seems to still be stuffing them with explosives and do the run-over-plus detonation thing.

Wednesday night: Whoever was at the clandestine workshop where they were apparently trying to weaponize a shit-ton of butane gas tanks screws up and blows up the whole thing sky-high. House demolished, one dead, several wounded.

The whole group of terrorists decides that they are fucked - the police is going to end up putting 2 and 2 together, and they will be done. Plan C is settled upon: Just run over as many people as they can in las Ramblas.

[/SPECULATION SUPPOSEDLY BASED ON POLICE SOURCES]

Now – as I said, this is only speculation as of right now. If this information is later on confirmed, then we can deduce that:

(1) Moussa Oukabir is an idiot, for he tried to rent a truck without showing the proper driver’s license to do so. That would later on possibly raise some eyebrows. It tends to call attention to yourself (especially when you are rather obviously young).

(2) The members of the cell were not properly trained in explosives manufacturing. Small comfort, yes, but it would show that DAESH does not have the means to actually train idiots, and relies on said idiots following the DIY style of traning via materials in the net, without hands-on training.

(3) This is more of a puzzle – If they rented the two vans in order to blow them up, and later on the whole plan is screwed, and they decide to act before they are arrested or have to go into hiding… Why use only one van? Why not go for both, given that the group is screwed anyway? Why not launch two simultaneous surprise attacks in separate locations? You may take the police and secret services on the wrong foot when you launch your attack, but afterwards they are going to be in high gear and very actively looking for you and anybody related to you. Thus, why use only one van?

(4) Why did the attack in Cambrils take so (relatively) long to happen, and where did the Audi A3 used in Cambrils come from? I have not read anything about that. It would seem that the police is keeping mum in that respect. Might it be a car property of somebody who is being investigated right now? Or perhaps a stolen car? No word so far about it.

Will keep reporting as new information comes in.

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Probably, but it’s also perfectly possible there was someone who said “Welsh” “uh?” “English” “ah!”

It’s possible that Driss Oukabir had nothing to do with it; he was arrested when he went to the police to report that he thought his brother (now identified as the driver) had stolen his ID, which had at that point been reported to have been found in the van. The cops still needed to investigate it, and the protocol still did call for this arrest, but it’s one more reason to agree that “swarmed with questions, the prisoner confessed*” is not the way to go. He may be as much of a victim as anybody else.

  • Acosado a preguntas, el preso confesó. Standard phrase which my Guardia Civil great-grandfather was known to say with so much drippy sarcasm you could have collected it in a bottle. He wasn’t in favor of those methods, at all.

Pepe, for (3), you’re forgetting they’re not very smart. THANK GOD!

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Evidently I quoted the wrong bit from Filbert. Y’all know which bit I meant.

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I found out about the attack when my sister called right away to say the family was safe and AFA she knew, nobody they knew was hurt. I love BCN, and this makes me sick, but I hope nobody is discouraged from visiting. I have never changed travel plans because of previous terrorist attacks.

Glad to hear our resident barceloneses are fine.

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BREAKING NEWS: The driver of the van and Moussa Oukabir have been confirmed to be dead. The two were among the five terrorists killed yesterday night in Cambrils.

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Missed edit window: and it transpires that a single police agent shot and killed 4 of the 5 terrorists neutralized in Cambrils. Tip of the hat to him, and I hope he’ll get a medal…

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Says the lady who said this about 9/11:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8967666&postcount=5