GUILTY Spain - Van plows into city center in Barcelona, injuries reported in "massive crash", Aug 2017

[ZaZara]

LaVanguardia, liveblog
http://www.lavanguardia.com/sucesos/20170821/43615352259/atentado-barcelona-ultima-hora.html

Younes Abouyaaqoub's location has been possible thanks to the collaboration of citizens. In the early afternoon a local woman saw a man like Abouyaaqoub approaching the houses.
When the woman reprimanded him and asked him what he was doing there, he ran away in the direction of some vineyards.

That is when the woman alerted the authorities. A patrol quickly approached the area and when they located him, he was carrying what looked like a belt of explosives.

BBM

 

[dotr]

Suspect named in the recent Finland stabbings, LE are looking to see if it is related to the Barcelona attack.
http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/World/2017/08/21/22747009.html

HELSINKI — A court in Finland has named the suspect in a stabbing rampage that killed two and wounded eight as 18-year-old Moroccan Abderrahman Mechkah, who is being treated in hospital after police shot him in the leg to subdue him in the south-western city of Turku.

According to court documents released Monday, regional police have requested the detention of Mechkah, a Moroccan asylum-seeker, on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, and terrorism crimes.

Police investigators said they are exploring possible links to last week’s extremist attacks in Spain, where the main suspect at large is Moroccan, as were most of his known accomplices.

rbbm.

 

[ZaZara]

[video=twitter;899668568958173185]https://twitter.com/mossos/status/899668568958173185[/video]


We confirm that the man shot down in #subirats is Younes Abouyaaqoub, author of the terrorist attack in #barcelona



BBM


I hope he went through hell during the days he was out there alone.

 

[jessie]

This link includes vid and comments: --

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/843991/Barcelona-terror-Subirats-suicide-belt-police-attack


How Barcelona police FINALLY tracked down and killed terror attacker Younes Abouyaaqoub

BARCELONA terror attacker Younes Abouyaaqoub has been shot dead by armed police after a four-day manhunt.

 

[gregjrichards]

Thank goodness the monster is caught and dead I really hope hell exists.

 

[ZaZara]

DEATH OF IMAM OF RIPOLL CONFIRMED; DIED IN ALCANAR

LaVanguardia, liveblog
http://www.lavanguardia.com/sucesos/20170821/43615352259/atentado-barcelona-ultima-hora.html

The Chief Commissioner of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Josep Lluís Trapero, also confirmed in a press conference that the imam of Ripoll Abdelbaki Es Satty is one of the dead persons found in the house of Alcanar (Tarragona) where there was an explosion on Wednesday night, shortly before the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils.


BBM

 

[ZaZara]

ARRESTS IN MOROCCO IN RELATION WITH BARCELONA AND CAMBRILS ATTACKS

ElPais
https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/08/21/actualidad/1503342176_595133.html

The Moroccan police have arrested at least one person for their alleged connection with the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils. Rabat authorities have questioned several people who have had links with those responsible for the bombing, as confirmed by anti-terrorist sources. The arrest took place this Sunday. The 12 terrorists were from Morocco or descendants of Moroccans, as were most of the perpetrators of the Madrid train attacks of 11 March 2004.

The investigators are trying to determine the intellectual authorship of the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils last Thursday (15 dead) and do not rule out that they had been prepared in Morocco or in France, given the links between the terrorists and the Moroccan country and of some of them with the neighboring country of the north, according to police sources.

The authorities of both countries have offered their full cooperation for the complete clarification of the facts. At the moment, the sources of the antiterror services have not explained the degree of alleged involvement of the detainee in Morocco with the 12 members of the terrorist cell of Catalonia (four detainees and eight dead).

The brothers Abouyaaqoub and Hychami, four of the members of the terrorist cell that attacked in Catalonia on Thursday, were from Mirt (Morocco). Their friends and relatives in the neighborhood of Tahayauit say that these young people were radicalized in Spain.

In addition, Adbelbaki Es Satty, Ripoll's imam whose remains have been found in the destroyed house of Alcanar, was working in Ripoll until last June, when he announced that he was going to Morocco for three months on vacation, although the person with whom he shared the apartment, Nourden Elhaji, says he saw him for the last time last Tuesday.


BBM

 

[ZaZara]

TERRORISTS OF CATALONIA MADE A QUICK RETURN TRIP TO PARIS 5 DAYS BEFORE THE ATTACKS

ElPais
https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/08/22/actualidad/1503391061_594282.html

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb has revealed on Tuesday that at least four of the terrorists in the jihadist cell who carried out attacks last week in Catalonia were in Paris days before the attacks. The Audi A3 of the terrorists was detected by a radar in Essonne, in the Paris region, with four people on board on 12 August, a week before the carnage in Barcelona and Cambrils. "It was an extremely fast round trip," said the minister, although they spent at least one night in a hotel in the south of the French capital.

In an interview with the BFMTV network, Collomb has said that the Paris traffic cameras detected the Audi A3 used in the Cambrils bombing because of speeding. "This group came to work in Paris but they returned quickly," he said without elaborating. "Indeed, they ere detected by a radar" because of speeding, according to Collomb.

Collomb has clarified that, despite this connection, the terrorist cell is not linked to France. "Yes, we now have seen what they were plotting, but we did not know these individuals ... They were exclusively Spanish," the French official said. At the moment "it's too soon" to explain the reasons for this "extremely fast round trip", he said. In his opinion, they went to France "to work".

Newspaper Le Parisien writes that, according to a French police source, the trip was "a simple crossing through France" and that they stayed in the night from 11 to 12 in a hotel in the south of Paris.

Collomb has indicated that France "has already transmitted this information" to the Spanish authorities. Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido spoke on Monday with his French counterpart, with whom he will meet Wednesday in Paris to discuss, among other issues, the latest terrorist attacks.


BBM


Confusing. Did they go to Paris or through Paris? And if they were only passing through Paris, where were they heading? (Molenbeek near Brussels, Belgium comes to mind...)


Daily Mail has raided the Instagram of Houssa Abouyaaqoub, younger brother of van-driver Younes. Houssa was shot dead in Cambrils where he intended to slash the throats of all holidaymakers on the seafront. He was all smiles in Paris three years ago. He loved skiing and rock climbing.
Those who knew him all tell what a great guy he was, and oh so very normal. IMHO that is the most worrying aspect of all. A pretty normal great guy getting ready to slash your throat and kill toddlers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4811724/Barcelona-jihadi-warns-motherf-er-day.html

 

[ZaZara]

SUSPECT BARCELONA ATTACK: 'A BIGGER ATTACK WAS PLANNED'

BBC.com
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41010469


The four suspects in court were (L-R) Mohammed Aalla, Mohamed Houli Chemlal, Sahal al-Karib and Driss Oukabir


One of the alleged Barcelona plotters has admitted a bigger attack was planned, judicial sources say.

Mohamed Houli Chemlal was testifying in the Madrid high court, where the four surviving suspects are appearing.

He was injured in an accidental blast that reduced a house to rubble in the town of Alcanar last Wednesday.

BBM


Mohamed Houli Chemlal is second from the left in the picture, he is wearing what looks like pyjamas.

 

[ZaZara]

IMAM PREACHED IN DIEGEM (BELGIUM) TOO: "OUR GUT FEELING TOLD US SOMETHING WAS WRONG"

De Standaard.be
http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20170822_03029105

The radical pivotal figure of the terrorist attack in Barcelona, Abdelbaki Es Satty, 46, was preaching for three months in a mosque in Diegem. "Suddenly he appeared from Spain to fill in the vacancy for an imam. That he had a criminal record, nobody knew. After three months, he was sent packing."

He choked on his coffee this weekend, Soliman Akaychouh. The chairman of the Diegem Mosque Youssef is on holiday and saw the images of the Barcelona Ramblas attack with some delay. When he saw the pictures, he did not doubt one second: he provided shelter for months to mastermind Abdelbaki Es Satty a year and a half ago. "He recognized Es Satty right away," says Mimoun Aquichouh, for more than a decade imam in Vilvoorde and cousin of the mosque president.

Es Satty, who managed to push minors in the Spanish Ripoll to such atrocities, lived in Diegem for three months. The imam from Vilvoorde confirms this. "In January 2016 he knocked at my cousin's door. At that moment there was a vacancy in the mosque that we did not manage to fill."

The imam said that he came from Spain, spoke Spanish and Arabic and according to him, he was in our country looking for work. According to Aquichouh, his cousin hesitated. "It was the choice between no Imam or an Imam about whom there were slight doubts." They decided for the second option.It was no impediment that he did not speak Dutch or French.

Es Satty preached for three consecutive months in the mosque. According to Aquichouh, contact with young people hardly existed. 'The Youssef Mosque is a relatively small mosque, where mainlly older men come to pray.'

Aquichouh met the mastermind behind the fifteen deaths in Barcelona one and a half years ago at a party. "As imam, he was constantly invited to celebrations. I did not sympathize with him. To me, he seemed a man with a lot of frustrations. I did not trust him."

Neither did his cousin even though there was no immediate cause for distrust. "Our gut feeling said something was not adding up," he says. That Es Satty was caught with twelve kilograms of hash in 2010 on the Spanish exclave Ceuta and passed four years in prison, he did not mention. Nor that he befriended in the same prison one of the key figures of the Madrid attacks in 2004. "His past remained a well-kept secret," says the imam from Vilvoorde. "That was precisely the signal for my cousin to smell a rat."

A proof of good conduct and morals would finally mean the end for the Spanish imam. "Actually, such a document is not necessary to work as imam, but my cousin wanted to be on the safe side. Each time, Es Satty said that the document would be there the next day. But in the mosque in Diegem he handed none over. "

After two months, Soliman Akaychouh secretly went to the local police . With the request to check their new imam. According to Vilvoord's mayor Hans Bonte (SP.A), it took three months before answers came from Spain. "Finally, our family sent him away by the end of March 2016, regardless of the results of the screening. After that, we never heard anything from him again."

The Cabinet of State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Theo Francken (N-VA) confirmed yesterday that Es Satty has never applied for a residence permit in our country. The federal parquet has called for the help of Antwerp terrorist detectives to investigate his exact role. For the time being, there are no indications that he was involved in the attacks of March 22 in Brussels.

Mosque President Akaychouh, speaking from from Morocco, said he was relieved that he had followed his gut feeling. "That man must have had radical ideas already at the time," he says. "We mustn't think of what might have happened in Belgium."


BBM

 

[ZaZara]

WITNESS WHO CALLED 112: "THE TERRORIST WHISTLED FOR HELP"

ElPais
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/08/22/catalunya/1503397905_384929.html

Younes Abouyaaqoub, the terrorist of La Rambla, sought in vain the help of a known acquaintance before being shot down by the Mossos d'Esquadra. This is explained by Agustin A., a local of Subirats who called the emergency number 112 to alert the presence of a suspect. His call and the data he contributed to the investigation point to the possibility that Abouyaaqoub sought shelter or assistance in a house where, until a year ago, a Moroccan family lived.

Agustín lives in one of the five semi-detached houses near the place where Abouyaaqoub was shot down, in an area of vineyards of Subirats, around 50 kilometers from Barcelona. "It's an isolated area," he explains. Until one year ago, in one of these houses lived a Moroccan family formed by a man, his wife and a girl of three years. "They simply disappeared. I do not know anything because, especially the man, he never talked to anyone."

The new owner of the house is an Argentinean who, shortly before 4:00 pm this Monday, heard a young man whistling from the back of the house, that overlooks some orchards. When he looked at the window to see who it was, a young man - who turned out to be the author of the La Rambla massacre - "walked away in another direction" as if he was annoyed that he had not found the person he was looking for.

All this explained the man from Argentina to Agustín, who called 112 with that information. "He heard that he whistled as if to call attention, to ask for help. And he came face to face with him. When he came to tell me, he was scared to death And I decided to call the police," says Agustín, who is a hunter.

"I did not see anything, but I called and explained in detail what my neighbor had seen. It was a boy in dark pants, navy blue shirt and black sneakers with white soles." They are the same shoes with which Abouyaaqoub appears in the images captured by the security cameras and made public by the Mossos d'Esquadra. The neighbor explained that the boy "looked like he was half-drugged or half-drunk."

"A few minutes later, we saw how a lot of police vehicles started to circulate along the road," added Agustín. He is satisfied that the terrorist has been shot. Before his call, two others crossed the tracks of Abouyaaqoub: that of a woman, expert in physiognomy, who said she had recognized him without any doubt; And three police officers who also believed they saw the suspect in the area and activated a search operation.

Two officers of the citizen security from neighboring Vilafranca finally found him crouched in an area of vineyards. The young man, 22, then opened his shirt and displayed a belt with explosives. He approached them shouting, "Allah is great!" in Arabic. In the face of doubt - the belts turned out to be false - the mossos opened fire and the terrorist died in the act. The analysis of the fingerprints served to confirm, without any doubt, his identity.

Agustín provided the Mossos with details of the Moroccan family installed in that house, and to which Abouyaaqoub allegedly came for help after four days of flight, The police are now trying to reconstruct these days. The hunter remained next to the mossos who combed the surroundings where the terrorist perished until at night. Although the investigators declared that the cell responsible for the attack (made up of 12 people) has been dismantled, they do not rule out that the cell had a network of collaborators or people who offered them logistical support.


BBM

 

[ZaZara]

THE FOUR MEN ARRESTED FOR THE ATTACKS BLAME THE IMAM OF RIPOLL AND SAY HE WANTED TO BLOW HIMSELF UP

ElPais
https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/08/22/actualidad/1503389124_391263.html

The first statement in the Audiencia Nacional has served to clarify the intentions of the jihadist cell that attacked Barcelona and Cambrils: the group was preparing a major bombing with explosives and the imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, would blow himself up. This was stated on Tuesday by Mohamed Houli Chemlal, the 21-year-old who was seriously injured in the explosion of the Alcanar house in Tarragona, where terrorists stored dozens of butane bottles. According to judicial sources, Houli has answered the questions of Judge Fernando Andreu for nearly an hour and ratified the declaration he made to the Mossos. The Office of the Prosecutor has then requested his entry into prison without bail. They did the same for the other three defendants.

Houli and the other three arrested - Driss Oukabir, Salah El Karib and Mohamed Aallaa - have arrived at the seat of the National Court about eight thirty in the morning. The Guardia Civíl has transported them from the Commandcia of Tres Cantos, where they spent the night from Monday to Tuesday. Once in the judicial building, the four have waited in the dungeons until 12.50 hrs in the afternoon. At that point Andreu's interrogations have started, and he will now decide whether to send them to prison or release them. All stand accused of four crimes: integration into terrorist organization, assassination, destructions and possession of explosives.

The young man wounded in Alcanar was the first to appear before the judge. Houli, who has pointed to the imam as the head of the group, has detailed that the cell was preparing to commit attacks on "monuments" of the Catalan capital. According to judicial sources present in the statement, this alleged jihadist has not explicitly mentioned any objective. Investigators suspect that he managed to save his life because, at the time when the building exploded, he was on the porch of the house.

Then, after a break and passes and at four minus ten in the afternoon, it's time for Driss Oukabir. At first, when the Mossos arrested him, he said that he was going to the police station in Ripoll to report that his brother, killed in Cambrils, had stolen the documentation that was used later to rent at least one of the vans Used by the cell. On Tuesday, however, he said that he rented it himself, but that he thought it was going to be used for a removal.

According to judicial sources, Oukabir also pointed to the imam as the ideologist and told the judge that they requested his help to get the vehicle and thus move furniture to an apartment wher three of the members of the cell were going to live. Oukabir, 28, was already on police file before the attacks in Catalonia. According to sources of the investigation as told to Efe, he spent a month in Figueres prison in 2012, after entering temporarily for his alleged involvement in a crime of sexual abuse.

After Oukabir, Mohamed Aallaa has declared , the owner of the Audi A3 intercepted in Cambrils. According to the version that he offered Tuesday in the National Court, the car was in his name "for an insurance issue." But in practice it was used by one of his two brothers involved in the attacks - one of them was shot down and the other is missing, although many indications point to him being the second deceased in the house of Alcanar. Aallaa, 27, added that he has another car, a Seat Ibiza, which is the one he uses.

The last to enter the room was Salah El Karib, 34 years old and owner of a phone shop in Ripoll, who distanced himself from the cell and has assured that he only acted as an intermediary in the purchase of plane tickets and he kept the commission. According to judicial sources, he said that he bought two tickets: one for the Ripoll imam, and one for Driss Oukabir - the latter, to travel to Morocco.

The four have appeared before Andreu with the assistance of their court-appointed lawyers. In the room also was Ana Noé, the prosecutor in charge of the case; Dolores Delgado, coordinating prosecutor for the fight against Jihadist terrorism; and the chief prosecutor of the National Court, Jesús Alonso, and his number two, Miguel Angel Carballo. The files are still being held under secrecy.


BBM

:jail: :jail: :jail: :jail:

 

[katydid23]

THE FOUR MEN ARRESTED FOR THE ATTACKS BLAME THE IMAM OF RIPOLL AND SAY HE WANTED TO BLOW HIMSELF UP


Blame the dead guy---well known tactic.

 

[ZaZara]

THE FOUR MEN ARRESTED FOR THE ATTACKS BLAME THE IMAM OF RIPOLL AND SAY HE WANTED TO BLOW HIMSELF UP


Blame the dead guy---well known tactic.

It all happened to them and there was nothing, absolutely nothing they could do to stop it...... they were totally powerless, they knew nothing or next to nothing and they are in fact the main victims and we should feel sorry for them.

:whine: :whine: :whine: :whine:

 

[ZaZara]

THE VICTIMS




The youngest victim, top left, is XAVI MARTINEZ. Xavi was 3 years old.
He was in Barcelona for the day with his family. His great-uncle, Francisco López, second on the left, was pushing his buggy when they were hit by the van. They both died. The other members of the family, Xavi's sister, mother and great-aunt, were gravely wounded.

There are hardly any pictures of little Xavi on the internet and Google appears not to know him.


:rose:

 

[jessie]

ZaZara Thank you so much for your detailed and informative updates. Much appreciated. :tyou:

 

[ZaZara]

LOCALS OF RIUDECANYES COMPLAINED ABOUT A BUILDING THAT TURNED OUT TO BE OCCUPIED BY TERRORISTS




El Pais
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/08/23/catalunya/1503509318_887187.html

The population of Riudecanyes, with just over 1,000 inhabitants, is 13 kilometers from Cambrils. The municipality is located next to the reservoir lake that bears the same name. The place is full of swimmers and bathers in August. To this spot the terrorists moved. They perpetrated the attacks last Thursday in Barcelona and Cambrils, which left 15 dead.

The ruling of the Judge of the National Court, Fernando Andreu, details that the jihadists temporarily occupied "a country house" before attempting to commit a second attack in Cambrils early Friday morning. There they tried to destroy the passports of two of the members of the cell. This presence in the property, which is an abandoned restaurant owned by the Town Council, was denounced by the neighbors the next day.

The destruction of the Alcanar house, where the jihadists prepared the explosives they wanted to use to carry out an attack larger than the one that occurred, precipitated their plans. It was necessary to act, and act fast, before the police connected the ruins of Alcanar with an imminent attack. A van headed to Barcelona's La Rambla to massively trample passers-by, while five of the members of the cell went to buy knives and an axe in a shop in Cambrils. However, before using the weapons in this tourist town of the Costa Daurada, the terrorists passed through this building in an urbanization of Riudecanyes.

The building has two storeys, its doors and windows have been boarded and the walls are full of graffiti. Lazy if you get high, please, come in or Hole to other universe are some of them. The place is frequented by groups of friends who come together to party overlooking the reservoir. On the outside, full of garbage and excrement, there is a playground, an extension of cement where the lines of a small football field are painted, and a porch. On that porch, the locals found the objects that made them suspicious.

Lara, who has been living for four years in the urbanization Mar de Riudecanyes, at a few meters from the restaurant, often goes to this place to walk her dogs, a German shepherd and a boxer. On Thursday, the day of the attacks, she saw nothing that caught her eye. On Friday morning, however, she stuck her head around the shed and discovered objects that had not been there the day before: a butane gas cylinder, a motorcycle helmet, a thermal blanket and some gauze. There were also signs of what looked like a barbecue. "In this place many young people come to drink, to smoke and to party, but with the barbecue I thought they had gone too far," she explains.
Without relating what she had seen with the attacks of the previous day, Lara called the Town Hall to complain about the antisocial behaviour. Two other locals, minors who also suspected the objects, did the same.

The complaints resulted in three days of intense police presence. The Mossos d'Esquadra searched the restaurant and monitored the connecting roads in search of the material author of the attack on La Rambla, who was on the run at that time.
In what looked like a barbecue, the Mossos found the remains of the passports of two of the attackers, Younes Abouyaaqoub - the terrorist on the Rambla, killed Monday in Subirats - and Mohamed Hichamy, of whom they also found the driver's license.

Likewise, among the ashes receipts of various purchases were discovered. One of them contains the details of the purchase of 500 liters of acetone and the necessary material for the preparation of explosives and for transporting them - pillow straps and grips. Another receipt dated at 21.26 hrs on the day of the attacks, relates the purchase of four knives and an ax in a shop in Cambrils.

The jihadists obviously used the abandoned restaurant to destroy the evidence before committing the attacks in Cambrils. To the restaurant they arrived with the Audi A3 in which they had made a flash trip to Paris, the same car that ended up overturning in a street of the tourist village. The mayor of Riudecanyes, Josep Maria Tost, explains that one of the locals of the urbanization claims to have seen the vehicle on Thursday.

The small town lives with dismay being one of the places that the terrorists chose to develop their plan. Esther and Albert, who live in the house right in front of the restaurant, walk with their two young children and, since they are curious, want to go see the marks of the bonfire in which the attackers tried to destroy the documents. "We were not at home those days, if we had been, I do not think they would have occupied the restaurant, because we see everything, we are constantly warning about the drinking parties that are organized there," Esther explains.

"We find the entire situation strange and it worries us," the mayor says. He is surprised that the jihadists chose this place. Tost explains that the Town Council wants to revitalize the restaurant, that has stood abandoned for more than twenty years, but that the economic crisis prevents it. "It is a relatively secluded place but at the same time frequented, because the locals are there and it is on top of the lake, where many tourists go", he indicates. "We are upset, nobody likes to appear in news like this".


BBM

 

[ZaZara]

[video=twitter;900444404590280708]https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/900444404590280708[/video]

Rukmini Callimachi, Correspondent for The New York Times covering ISIS, verfied account



1. Some incredible new details in today's court filing regarding the Barcelona attack:

2. The record states that inside the Alcanar house, that was blown up by accident by the terror cell, they identified the body of the imam

3. The 40-something imam of Ripoll named Abdelbaki Es Satty is believed to be the ringleader of the group, which included several teenagers

4. In the wreckage, sources told me that they found TATP inside test tubes and that it was of "high" quality. That suggests training

5. For the past few days, we have been trying to learn what we can about the iman's links (if any) to ISIS. The court record provides a clue

6. It says that a green-colored book was found inside bearing Satty's name. Inside written by hand they found the following inscription:

7. "Brief letter from the Soldiers of the Islamic State in the land of Andalucia to the crusaders, the hateful, the sinners, the unfair..."

8. Recall that Andalucia is the old Arabic name for Spain. It's the term ISIS uses for Spain and also appeared in their claim day of attack

9. (Previous tweet should read al-Andalus). See below from a pro-ISIS channel where they claim that Spain was part of their caliphate:

10. The court filing also says that they found quantities to acetone and hydrogen peroxide, the raw materials used to make TATP.

11. TATP is ISIS' signature explosive for attacks in Europe. As far back as 2014, an ISIS fighter was arrested in Europe with a TATP manual

12. It's TATP that was used in Verviers, Paris, Brussels, Manchester and now Spain, always by ISIS:

[ link to report by Rukmini Callimachi for NYT : How ISIS Built the Machinery of Terror Under Europe’s Gaze
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/world/europe/isis-attacks-paris-brussels.html ]

BBM

 

[ZaZara]

THE LAST IMAGES OF THE TERRORISTS BEFORE THE DEADLY RAMPAGE IN CAMBRILS

[video]https://youtu.be/kff0Plcq_dk[/video]


El Pais
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/08/23/catalunya/1503516797_727440.html


The terrorists who were shot in Cambrils went to the Cambrils Cooperative service area on four occasions on the same day. The last one was only three hours before they found themselves with a surveillance unit of the Mossos d'Esquadra. The Mossos prevented them from carrying out the attack that they planned on the tourist resort. Nevertheless, they managed to run over several people with their Audi A3 and stab a woman who did not survive.

The service area's security cameras, located on the A-7, recorded images of the terrorists at least four times, according to the Ara newspaper.
The first are at 16.00. In them you see only Mohamed Hychami.
In the second, between 18.00 and 19.00, appears Houssaine Abouyaaqoub (brother of the terrorist shot down after La Rambla) buying a recharge for a mobile phone.
The third set of images was recorded at 20.55, and in the images appear three of the ones who were shot down later: Omar Hychami, Houssaine Abouyaaqoub and Moussa Oukabir. They came to buy lighters.
At 22.00, Omar Hychami returns, buying bread, tortillas and isotonic drinks.


BBM


Look at those guys in the video. A few hours ago, their friend has run over 100 people, killing a dozen, including a toddler, and they are about to do the same with knives and an axe. They look cool as cucumbers. They are buying lighters to burn their documents.

And they later decide they do not want to go to paradise on an empty stomach....:facepalm:

 

[ZaZara]

THE IMAM FROM RIPOLL SHOWED HIS RADICAL SIDE IN A BELGIAN MOSQUE

El Pais
https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/08/24/actualidad/1503568911_456893.html

The imam from Ripoll preached in a Belgian mosque using a language that made the leaders of the mosque suspicious. Soliman Akaychouch, the president of the mosque where Abdelbaki es Satty came to ask for work, has confirmed this to the Belgian Prosecutor's Office. Abdelbaki es Satty is considered the leader of the terrorist cell that carried out attackeds in Catalonia.

The investigation of the Belgian authorities into the residence in their country of the mastermind of the attacks has been launched with speed. Yesterday Wednesday, when Akaychouch, the president of the mosque of Diegem returned from his vacations in Morocco, he was called to declare in condition of witness. At the exit, Jean-Pierre De Groef, the mayor of this small Flemish municipality near Brussels, who accompanied the president of the mosque, told Belgian television VRT that the latter "went to listen to some sermons as a test and considered that the sermons were not suitable for a community like Diegem. " "As the president of the mosque says, he did not follow the prophet, he spoke with more violence" and was "more extremist," added the mayor without specifying the exact content of those sermons.

The person in charge of the mosque of Diegem assures that they were unequivocal with the imam of Ripoll as soon as they checked the content of his message. "As the people in charge of the mosque, we clearly indicated that he had no place here and that he had to leave."
Akaychouch confirmed the revelations of his counterpart from Vilvoorde to EL PAÍS. They asked Es Satty for a certificate with his criminal records and he kept on making excuses instead of delivering it, so they decided not to hire him and notified the police, which was the moment when he disappeared off their radar. "Abdelbaki Es Satty came to us to ask for a job as an imam, so, of course, we asked him for his documents to control these, and when we asked them he behaved in a very suspicious way," he said without elaborating.

The suspicions of those responsible for the mosque over Es Satty continued even after the Mossos d'Esquadra assured the Vilvoorde police that they had no record of his past relationship with radical organizations or terrorist attacks. Vilvoorde councilor Hans Bonte praised this vigilant attitude of the Muslim community in the area because it prevented Es Satty from settling in Belgium and becoming a security risk for the country. "Some are astounded by the fact that the head of the mosque in Diegem went to the authorities asking for more information about this individual," he said in an interview with the newspaper.

The three months that the imam of Ripoll passed in Belgium between January and March of 2016 are under the magnifying glass of the authorities to determine if it made contact with other radicals. His stay in Belgium has been confirmed by the Belgian Prosecutor's Office, and in the house of Alcanar were found several airline tickets of the company Vueling with destination Brussels whose date has not yet passed. That has stirred the highest Belgian authorities. Interior Minister Jan Jambon has confirmed the contacts between the Belgian and Catalan police and stressed that his country had no reason to suspect the imam. "He had a residence permit and a Spanish driving license, but there was no file," he said in an interview with the VTM Flemish chain.

The imam of Ripoll died in the explosion of the house of Alcanar, where the terror cell stored dozens of butane bottles with which they aimed to prepare an attack. From his passage through Belgium his attempt to become an imam of Diegem is known, but it is not ruled out that he moved in other localities. The Executive of the Muslims of Belgium, an organization that groups almost 40 mosques, has denied to El Pais that Es Satty had contacted them at some point. "We've never heard of him," they say.

Although in this case the reaction of those responsible for the Mosque of Diegem prevented the Ripoll Imam from preaching there, the Belgian Muslim organization remains cautious about the presence of an extremist discourse in other religious centers. "We can not ensure that the radical message has disappeared from the mosques. There are mosques in which conservative ideas cannot be ruled out," president Salah Echallaoui warns. The authorities are no stranger to this reality, and this week the Belgian government has expressed its desire to have more informants integrated within the Muslim community.


BBM


First reports that imam Es Satty indeed tried to radicalize muslims in Belgium are starting to appear, but, for the time being, they are kept behind a pay wall:

De Morgen.be
https://www.demorgen.be/plus/neef-uit-belgie-gaf-spaanse-imam-onderdak-b-1503531601961/

COUSIN FROM BELGIUM PROVIDED SHELTER TO SPANISH IMAM

According to the French newspaper La Dernière Heure, Abdelbaki Es Satty, the Spanish imam behind the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, was staying with his nephew who lives in the Vilvoorde region during his visits to our country.

In addition, the man - who was refused as imam in Diegem because he did not want to deliver proof of good conduct and morals - would have undertaken several attempts to radicalize people in our country. "Although we do not know if that has been successful," according to a judicial source.

BBM


IMHO he must have had some time to spare, since it does not take all week to write a sermon. Also, being a member of ISIS, he would have had other plans.

My idea is that he never meant to blow himself up, even if that is what he told the other members of the cell. He would have quietly disappeared after the attacks, and then, when the coast was clear, he even might have returned to Ripoll. I wonder if his - alleged - family in Morocco has already been located? it is very strange that his actual age is not known, or so it appears. If they don't know his age, they may neither know if this person was whom he claimed to be.