The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– Europe’s deadliest attack –
Spain had until now been spared the kind of extremist violence that has rocked nearby France, Belgium and Germany.
But it was hit by what is still Europe’s deadliest jihadist attack in March 2004, when bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people in an attack claimed by Al Qaeda-inspired extremists.
Police said Thursday that one of the arrested suspects in the Barcelona attack was a Spaniard born in Melilla, a Spanish territory on Morocco’s north coast, and the other a Moroccan named as Driss Oukabir.
The Spaniard was arrested in Alcanar, about 200 kilometres south of Barcelona, the scene of an explosion in a house late Wednesday that left one person dead and seven wounded and is believed to be linked to Thursday’s assault.
“We suspect that they (the occupants) were preparing an explosive device,” Josep Lluis Trapero of the regional Catalonia police told reporters.
Thursday’s attack drew condemnation from across the globe.
– ‘Revolting attack’ –
US President Donald Trump condemned the “terror attack” and said the United States “will do whatever is necessary to help”, adding: “Be tough & strong, we love you!”
France’s President Emmanuel Macron — whose country has witnessed a series of bloody jihadist atrocities including a truck rampage in Nice in July 2016 that killed 86 people — said his thoughts were with the victims of the “tragic attack”.
The Nice carnage and other assaults including the 2015 shootings and bombings on Paris nightspots were claimed by the Islamic State, but it is believed to be the first IS claim of an attack in Spain.
Catalonia has the highest concentration of radicalised Islamists in the country along with Madrid and the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco.
According to the interior ministry, more than 190 “jihadist terrorists” have been arrested since 2015, most of them for propaganda, recruitment for extremist groups or “glorifying terrorism”.
