BREAKING NEWS: The last remaining terrorist at large, Abouyaaqoub, has been killed today in the village of Subirats.
He was sneaking around an isolated house in the zone; a woman saw him and confronted him. Then, he ran away into some wineyards.
The woman recognized him and alerted the police. The Mossos came and surrounded him. Then he lifted his clothing and showed what appeared to be an explosive belt. At that, the agents opened fire and killed him on the spot.
All 12 members of the cell have been killed or captured. The most important of them, for his interrogation value, is the sole survivor of the explosion in Alcanar. He was there making explosives and was involved in the cell to the eyebrows. Very likely he will have information about the cell itself, how they came to become radicalized, the sources of training into making explosives, etc.
I kinda wonder how much useful info can be extracted from him.
On the one hand, these groups don’t seem sophisticated enough to be issuing secret cyanide capsules* for their agents to consume when they’re captured. On the other hand, they don’t seem closely-knit enough for individuals to know much about their own cells; less about other cells or the larger network. Is there much he could divulge that isn’t already known?
–G?
*“This week it’s raspberry flavored!”
–Siegfried of KAOS (Get Smart TV series)
At the very least, confirming who was radicalizing them; whether he or any other members went abroad (and where) – remember that within the Schengen countries there are normally no border controls and it is harder to determine if someone has crossed the border; if he himself went abroad, who did he meet with; where did he learn to prepare explosives; what were the exact plans they had; who was helping the cell from outside and giving logistical support… The most important thing would be finding external contacts and following that thread.
And they don’t have cyanide capsules, but it seems that they were using fake explosive belts as a means of ensuring suicide by cop during their final confrontations.
yes it is clearly the case in the last one, he is reported to have exposed his faux belt, it was to be killed.
It is too bad, the interrogation would have been useful.
it is hard to fight against secretive small cells, as the old history of the anarchist left and the Spanish own history shows, but having the population they normally need to swim in feel confident to report them, this can help.
The ones killed in Cambrils also used fake explosives to commit suicide by cop. The actual weaponry they had was on the order of knives and hatchets.
It reads to me as if they were more focused on “dying for Allah” (not that Allah is particularly interested in that) than on “killing infidels for Allah” (bis). They got convinced to throw their lives away for a Paradise that doesn’t want them.
BREAKING NEWS: 22 year old arrested in Zevenbergen (Dutch town some 60 km away from where I live - as some of you know, I live in the Netherlands) after the Dutch police received a report from the Spanish police warning of a possibly imminent attack against a concert in Rotterdam.
The concert was suspended before it began and, initially, the police arrested a suspicious guy who was driving a van with Spanish license plates to and fro around the concert area. The van had 5 tanks of flammable gas inside… However, it was a false alarm - the driver was a Spanish plumber who was drunk and lost in the area… Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time driving the wrong vehicle in the wrong state of mind!!
However, at 2am, the police arrested a 22 year old guy in the above-mentioned town (Zevenbergen)… and it seems that this one is the “real McCoy”. No details have been made public so far (no name, nothing - only that an arrest was made and the house of the suspect was searched). Maybe later more information will be given.
I have the feeling that all this is because the survivor from the explosion in Alcanar is singing like a canary. Which is a good thing.
The Netherlands gained their independence from the Spanish crown 400 years ago. That’s quite a lot of time. The links between Spain and the Netherlands, nowadays, are just the standard links between two EU states. There is no particular or special connection between them.
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time driving the wrong vehicle in the wrong state of mind!!