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

[ZaZara]

MOTHER OF BARCELONA TERRORIST BEGS HER SON TO SURRENDER


VozPopuli
http://www.vozpopuli.com/agencias/madre-Younes-Abouyaaqoub-pide-entregue_0_1055295128.html

The mother of Younes Abouyaaqoub - wanted for capture as the alleged driver of the van of the attack in Barcelona - has begged her son to surrender at the last hour of Saturday. She rejected the killings and said that it is better that her son is imprisoned than dead.

The mother, Ghanno Gaanimi, told this to journalists during a rally of Muslim locals to ask for peace and to reject the attacks, held on Saturday afternoon in the center of Ripoll (Gerona) .

Next to her, a family member translated her words. The relative introduceded herself as a cousin of Younes Abouyaaqoub and his brother, and also a relative of the Hychami brothers, who were killed during the attack in Cambrils.(*)

Translating for the mother of Younes Abouyaaqoub, she has translated her words: "Let him come to see her, let him come with her, let him not do this, for she is not to blame for any of this."

"Let him go to the police, to surrender, she prefers him to be in prison instead of dead, she does not want them to kill others, because they are people" and because Islam does not talk about killing, she added.

The translator and cousin of the young men has also spoken for herself, and has responded with a "nothing" when asked if they had any indication of what they were planning

For her, "they were kids as normal as everyone else. They prayed, but there was nothing wrong in following their religion."

She added that they led a normal life: "They had their vacations, they were going to Germany, that's what they said", and every year they went on vacation.

And she explained: "Lately they were not a lot around here because it is summer and these guys what they normally do, is go to the beach" because they live and work in the village, but they are also outside; above all, in the recent months," she literally nuanced.

"You never say that your son or your relative would do this," and she has concluded that someone must have influenced them negatively by taking advantage of their youth.

"We believe that here there has been a bigger head that brainwashed them," she said.

When asked if they suspect Ripoll's imam - who may be one of the dead suspects -, she replied: "Most believe it, most say yes, because they were normal boys and, since he arrived, they have gotten involved more into religion."

"They were all a group together, they are not kids who drink or smoke, they had their cars, they were well dressed, they are not people who lack money because they all work, the younger ones study," she upheld.

In addition, statements were made by the sister of Mohamed and Omar Hychami, who died in Cambrils: "It is a lie, they have been wrong, it is not them, they are traveling, and I am still waiting that it turns out not to be them."


BBM


* another family link in the terror cell !

 

[ZaZara]

THE IMAM OF RIPOLL RADICALIZED THE TERRORISTS WITHIN A FEW MONTHS

ElMundo.es
http://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2017/08/19/5997f791e5fdeaa3338b45a2.html

Abdelbaki is 45 years old, thin and does not reach 1.70 meters in height. If for some reason he stands out, it would be because he is solitary. Reserved, almost airtight. A man who is known as a marabout, a Muslim hermit. Sources of the anti terror services confirm that he left the provincial prison in Castellón in January 2012. The reason for his incarceration: drug trafficking.

In particular he transported hashish. He was in charge of realizing the route Ceuta-Algeciras. In the nearly two years that he was in prison, he took up the responsibility for the prayer with the rest of the inmates and made special friendship with one of them, Rachid Aglif, aka The Rabbit, sentenced to 18 years for having participated in 11-M. [Madrid train attacks]

His involvement with radical activities does not end here. His name also appears in the files of the so-called Operation Jackal, in which five Islamists were arrested in January 2006 in Vilanova i la Geltrú (Barcelona) for recruiting mujahideen to send them to Iraq.

Since arriving in Ripoll about two years ago, he was seldom found on the street. He passed his days walking from his house to the mosque and from there to his home again.

He began working at the Annour Temple in May last year. He left it at the end of June, coinciding with the end of Ramadan. He asked for three months of vacation and more money to go to Morocco, something that was not well regarded in the community.

"We did not give it to him. It is not possible that one of the people who prays with us every day leaves and takes up the post of imam," explains Hammou Minhat, spokesman for this association. Abdelbaki did not get angry. He may have been lacking in charisma, but he stood out for his tranquility. And he faded into thin air. "He did not talk with people. He prayed and then he left," Minhat adds. In this mosque they never saw him again.

The same happened with the alleged perpetrators of the attack. They had once dropped by Annur, but for some time they had lost track of them.

An ex-friend of these, who highlights the repulsion he feels towards them after what has happened, is clear: "They did not kill for faith. I can assure you that. As much belief as you can get, you will not go hitting people like that for sure. Money aside, they did it because someone brainwashed their heads. "

This young man remembers that, from two months to this moment, he noticed them very rarely. The four of them were always together. And he is practically convinced that if they have been "brainwashed" it must have been almost imminent. An instant radicalization. "Less than two months ago Moussa went to school and passed his exams in all the subjects. He was more focused. I do not think he was radicalized since an earlier moment. In fact, about three months ago I was with Mohamed (Houli Chemlal) partying. We both drank and smoked from the same hookah. He could barely walk without falling. Do not tell me fairy tales like it was religion."

Embarrassed by the act of his compatriots, this Maghrebian does not hesitate to ask for forgiveness in the name of Islam and emphasizes that "it does not represent that word that leaves blood in its wake." "I have read the Qur'an and it says that having faith is enough. It does not say anything about killing someone. The people who murder in his name are because they want to pollute it.
If Abdelbaki is as they say the one who washed their brains, he should spend all his miserable life in prison, and by the way give him four slaps in the face, so that the nonsense flies away. And the other four, I do not mind saying, if things stand as the media have published, I would also give them four smacks because they have stained the name of the Koran and Morocco."

BBM

 

[ZaZara]

THE YIHADISTS FROM RIPOLL PLANNED A MASS STABBINGS AT THE SEAFRONT OF CAMBRILS

Mossos d'Esquadra prevented a massacre

ElPais
https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/08/20/actualidad/1503190336_701058.html

The five members of the terrorist cell killed in Cambrils by the Mossos d'Esquadra were driving in an Audi A3 to this locality not with the aim to run over people, but with the intention of stabbing all the passers-by on the seafront that would come in their way.

This has been told to EL PAÍS by solid sources of the investigation. The investigation is directed by the judge Fernando Andreu, who will interrogate the four detainees of the jihadist cell next Tuesday, in the National Audience, where they will be transferred in special vans from the Catalan capital. Among the members of the cell of Ripoll (Girona), there are eight dead, four arrested and three allegedly on the run.

The occupants of the Audi A3 could not fulfill their objective. All five were willing to sow the terror by cutting throats in Cambrils, a town filled with holidaymakers, but their plans were thwarted by several traffic controls of the Mossos. The plan was to go stabbing and slashing from side to side on the promenade of Cambrils (Tarragona). They chose the night knowing that at that time there would be many tourists, according to the investigation.


BBM

 

[ZaZara]

THIS WAS THE LIFE OF THE TERRORISTS, SQUATTERS IN A HOUSE IN ALCANAR

For months, the neighbors of the house that served as laboratory for the attacks saw loading and unloading of gas cylinders

ElPais
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/08/19/catalunya/1503172587_536314.html?rel=cx_articulo#cxrecs_s

The urbanization Montecarlo is located a few kilometers from Alcanar, the last town of Catalonia on the border with the Valencian Community. On one side you find the sea, on the other side a large cement factory that sits under the sun of las Tierras del Ebro. There, a few months ago, a group of boys came to live.

Two of them were killed last Wednesday in an explosion that left the house they had occupied in ruins and another wounded. The main hypothesis of the police is that this house was the center of operations for the double attack in Catalonia, attacks that could easily have had far worse consequences.

The urbanization stretches out into chalets and lonely and hot dirt roads. The mayor of Alcanar, Alfons Montserrat, describes the place with a resigned gesture: "no one no one passes by here except the few neighbors who live there, and there are almost no streetlights." On Friday, the mayor of the town confessed that it appeared an "explosion of little importance."
"We did not imagine it was related to the attacks," he admitted.

The scientific police and the Mossos d'Esquadra have cordoned off the area while the operation lasts for the explosives and butane bottles that, had the accident not occurred, would have given more tools to the terrorists. From Ripoll, they planned the attacks in La Rambla in Barcelona and in Cambrils, and from Alcanar they prepared the artillery.

The blast occurred shortly after 11 pm Wednesday. "It was horrible, it was a very loud noise, a lot of smoke and dust, we were on the terrace," explains Eric Groby, a French neighbor. The blast smashed the windows of the Hotel Montecarlo, across the road, and broke the plate with the dinner that another neighbor, Patrick Vinaros, was eating.

"They were in that house for many months, they came in, they went out, they unloaded things, bottles..." he says.

"They were very young. Only one of them was older, one with a beard. The rest appeared to be 20 years old." Elian Fernandez, a French woman who spent her vacation in the adjoining house, owned by some friends, tells.

"We knew that the cottage where these young people appeared was for sale, so we were surprised to see that they settled there." Elian remembers that she went to a real estate company to ask if those young people had bought the house, property of the Banco Popular. "But at the real estate company they told us no, it was still for sale." Then we looked at our electricity meter in case they were getting electricity from us, as they had water and electricity, but no. We do not really know where they got the water nor the electricity."

Then Elian deduced what the investigators concluded later: that the house was occupied. "What we could never imagine is that they were preparing something so awful inside," Elian says, lowering her voice. Neither the City Council nor the Mossos d'Esquadra received any notice or complaint.

In all, the number of new arrivals was 12, and they formed, as would be known, the cell that prepared the attacks that left 14 dead in Catalonia. "They used ride a motorcycle, they had a car and a van, but the van was used only by the older one, the one with the beard," she says. "They were very discreet, they never made any noise or had loud music, they did not even shout. When we met them in the streets, they greeted us, but they appeared shy."

The other cottage next to the terrorists, curiously, was also occupied. In this case by a Roma family of Gypsy ethnicity who had been living there for some time. The son, Lorenzo, also remembers seeing the young people enter and leave on a motorcycle. "They were Arabs, I remember that, they used to be normal and say 'hello' if they saw us and that's it, they never talked about anything else." Lorenzo says that "sometimes they were on the terrace, with the cell phone, and sometimes they were boxing. They used to do boxing."

On that terrace, precisely, one of the terrorists was standing on Wednesday night, when the cottage flew through the air. Lorenzo had passed in front hardly a minute earlier. "I would go home and say hello to him. He was wearing a white tank top and looking at the cell phone.I knocked on my door and everything exploded." It was 23:17. Lorenzo ended up on the first floor of his house pushed by the shock wave. "The windows of the house burst and several walls fell," he says.

Firefighters believed that the explosion was caused by a gas leak. The main task then was the search for survivors, while the police investigation worked with the hypothesis that the occupants manipulated gas cylinders to commercialize them. Later the idea of a drug laboratory was discussed. The next day, however, the bombing in Barcelona and a second explosion in the Alcanar house forced the Mossos to review the case: they expanded the security zone and focused on the search for explosives. In recent days, the police have detonated in a controlled way some of those that remained between the ruins.

It would be discovered later that what they blew up, were a part of the 106 gas cylinders and containers that the terrorists stored in the house. Some of them contained TATP, an explosive used by the Islamic State known as The Mother of Satan. Others were butane, which had to be detonated as a secondary explosion. The chief commissar of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Josep Lluís Trapero, would explain hours later that the terrorists were preparing the explosives for a major attack. And investigative sources suggest, still under investigation, that it would be carried out with three vans loaded with cylinders.

But something went wrong. And, faced with the abrupt change of plans, the members of the cell decided to hurl themselves forward with their last resource. One of them went in the van to Barcelona's La Rambla and another five headed to Cambrils.


BBM


Families will usually say that their beloved one was absolutely normal, that they did not notice a thing and so on, but why did not any of their neighbors in the area raise the alarm? or at least have suspicions based on what they saw?
Drug laboratory would have been the first thing on my mind. How many gas cylinders does a household possibly need in the summer months? You can cook a lot of paella on one bombona even for 12 persons, and there the new neigbours go again, with yet another load of gas cylinders. How normal is that?

One wonders what the Rumanian squatters are up to if they did not think this strange, or worried about the load of 106 bombonas next door.


:noooo:

 

[margarita25]

Barcelona attack: police do not know if suspect has crossed into France

Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, continues to elude Catalan police despite 800 vehicle check points and increase in anti-terror officers

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...joins-public-at-mass-for-victims-in-barcelona

“"We don’t know where he is,” regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero told a press conference on Sunday. “We have received no information to suggest he is in France.”*

The Catalan interior minister, Joaquim Fose, downplayed the risks to the public, saying police actions had “neutralised” the ability of the jihadists to cause more carnage.

But the limits of the security forces to identify dangers have become more apparent as it has emerged that intelligence agencies had no prior warning of the 12-man jihadist cell that was*originally planning a major bomb attack*before an accidental explosion forced a change of plans."

 

[margarita25]

Spain hunts for suspected driver, two others in connection with Barcelona attack
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...utType=default-article&utm_term=.a6e4eb784403

 

[margarita25]

"Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade released this statement on behalf of the Cadman family: “Julian was a much loved and adored member of our family. As he was enjoying the sights of Barcelona with his mother, Julian was sadly taken from us.

“He was so energetic, funny and cheeky, always bringing a smile to our faces. We are so blessed to have had him in our lives and will remember his smiles and hold his memory dear to our hearts.

“We would like to thank all those who helped us in searching for Julian. Your kindness was incredible during a difficult time. We also acknowledge we are not the only family to be affected by the events, our prayers and thoughts are with all people affected.

“We will not be making any further comments on this tragedy and ask everyone, especially the media, to give us the privacy we need to grieve away from the public eye.”"

Sydney boy Julian Cadman died in Barcelona terror attacks
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...s/news-story/92d85f9e60f2d854d4c68375ad281ab6

 

[margarita25]

Barcelona attack: Spain terror cell had 120 gas canisters
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40990927

"Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero has given an update on the investigation.

He said the cell was still believed to consist of 12 men and had been planning attacks for more than six months. One person remained at large, four were under arrest and there were two sets of human remains to be identified, he added."

 

[margarita25]

A bomb factory in a beach town may be key to Spain's terror attacks
[video=cnn;world/2017/08/20/alcanar-town-spain-bomb-attack-lon-orig.cnn]http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/20/europe/alcanar-spain-terror-attacks-plot/index.html[/video]

"Alcanar's vice-mayor, Jordi Bort, told CNN that the house the men were squatting in was owned by a bank, which did not know that people were residing there illegally. The house's septic tank was used as storage for the explosives, Bort said."

*photos at link

 

[gregjrichards]

Barcelona attack: police do not know if suspect has crossed into France

Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, continues to elude Catalan police despite 800 vehicle check points and increase in anti-terror officers

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...joins-public-at-mass-for-victims-in-barcelona

“"We don’t know where he is,” regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero told a press conference on Sunday. “We have received no information to suggest he is in France.”*

The Catalan interior minister, Joaquim Fose, downplayed the risks to the public, saying police actions had “neutralised” the ability of the jihadists to cause more carnage.

But the limits of the security forces to identify dangers have become more apparent as it has emerged that intelligence agencies had no prior warning of the 12-man jihadist cell that was*originally planning a major bomb attack*before an accidental explosion forced a change of plans."

I hope they are on alert for this monster in Belgium too I'm sure they are.

Thank you ZaZara and everyone for your updates they are very much appreciated.

I'm so upset about Julian and all the people who have died Men, women and children aged 3 to 80 I have been in tears all day. I'm totally dismayed at what is going on in the world. I wish there was a solution to stopping these attacks.

 

[Bravo]

I hope they are on alert for this monster in Belgium too I'm sure they are.

Thank you ZaZara and everyone for your updates they are very much appreciated.

I'm so upset about Julian and all the people who have died Men, women and children aged 3 to 80 I have been in tears all day. I'm totally dismayed at what is going on in the world. I wish there was a solution to stopping these attacks.

:grouphug:

 

[ZaZara]

POLICE INVESTIGATE SEVERAL TRAVELS OF CELL MEMBERS TO CENTRAL EUROPE

ElPais
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/08/20/catalunya/1503233185_315420.html

The Ripoll imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, suspected of radicalizing the group of young people who carried out the attacks on La Rambla in Barcelona and Cambrils (Tarragona), had no record for terrorist offenses, the head of The Mossos d'Esquadra, Josep Lluís Trapero explained this morning in an appearance for international media. He had, instead, had "some judicial issues".

Trapero has confirmed that the cell had been preparing an explosive attack from a house in Alcanar (Tarragona) for months on, but that the explosion at this operational center caused the terrorists to rethink the action and decide to attack with vehicles. The police also investigate the travels of several members of the cell to Central Europe and want to know the reason for those displacements and with whom they met. In addition, they also investigate the murder of an aid worker in Sant Just Desvern after the person who drove this vehicle skipped a control post on Diagonal Avenue. The Mossos do not discard now that this event is linked with the attack of La Rambla. "We have convincing elements," said Trapero.

The police investigation shows that the members of the cell, of which none had a history of terrorism, had been in the Alcanar house for six months. However, neither the local nor the regional police received any warning about their presence. "We had no information whatsoever that was happening in Alcanar," he said. The Mossos are now trying to remove all the debris from that house to retrieve possible information that the terrorists might have kept there, according to police sources. However, the tasks are not simple. Trapero has confirmed that this process is developing "slowly", since every time a butane bottle is found, controlled explosions must be carried out in order to be able to continue with the process.

Trapero confirmed that the Catalan police is searching certain persons for capture. Among them, according to sources of the anti-terror operations, are Youssef Aalla, Abdelbaki Es Satty (the imam) and Younnes Abouyaaqoub. However, the head of the Mossos has assured that "surely" two of them are dead. Trapero has not specified whom exactly is the person they are looking for, although everything points to it that this is Abouyaaqoub. In fact, the head of the Catalan police has stated that they do not know his whereabouts.

"If we knew the place [where he is] we would go after him. We do not know where he is," he said to the question of whether Abouyaaqoub was in Spain. The Mossos also do not want to confirm that Abouyaaqoub, who has no history, is suspected of having driven the van that ran over a hundred people, but have admitted that this is now the main hypothesis. "We are working in that line, but when we are in a position to do so, we will tell more," he said.

In case Abouyaaqoub is the person who is alive, that would mean that Es Satty and Youssef Aalla would have died in the Alcanar explosion, where the remains of at least three persons have been found (although sources of the anti-terror services claim to have found biological remains of three). Both made trips to Central Europe. Satty went to Belgium, while Aalla had gone to Zurich. The Catalan police are now investigating these trips. "There is one person or another who could have made a trip to the center of Europe. We are finding out with whom he was in contact and with what objective," Trapero said. He admitted that these inquiries are "in a very early stage." Police have recalled that they have arrested four young men from the cell, who are contributing "informations of interest" that are being analyzed.

The imam is under the magnifying glass of the Mossos for the suspicion that he is the person who radicalized the young people who, according to their environment, lived fully integrated in the town of Ripoll (Girona). However, Trapero also did not want to venture on how this process had occurred despite having "elements", "suspicions" and "some indications". "They are not enough to formulate a reliable thesis," he said. Trapero recalled that the processes of radicalization do not occur only in mosques or prisons, but mainly through the Internet.


BBM


The members of the terrorist cell had been working in the house in Alcanar for six months. Meaning that their radicalization was neither recent nor instant and young Moussa went to school and passed his exams with good grades, all while being a jihadist involved in a major terrorist operation.

The degree of deception is overwhelming. Little value should be attached to the fact that family and friends declared that the jihadists appeared so normal.
The art of taqiyya (deceit for religious reasons) and kitmān (dissimulation) is an integral part of the islamic doctrine.

"we smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them"


As for the travels, Belgium has a big Salafist community and given the open borders, Es Satty might have travelled anywhere from there, for instance to nearby Germany.
Zürich, in Switzerland, where Aalla would have been, is also the place where Anis Amri, who drove a truck into the Christmas market in Berlin las year, is known to have had contacts there.

:thinking:

 

[ZaZara]

IMAM OF RIPOLL WENT TO VILVOORDE IN BELGIUM TO LOOK FOR WORK

ElPais
https://elpais.com/internacional/2017/08/20/actualidad/1503245675_934901.html

Local authorities in Vilvoorde, a Flemish town bordering Brussels, have confirmed Sunday that Abdelbaki Es Satty, the Ripoll imam considered the brains behind the attacks of August 18 and 19, was in the town in 2016. "I can confirm that he was here from January to March last year," the mayor, Hans Bonte, said. He does not rule out that the imam had been in the country before. Vilvoorde is an old jihadist hotbed.

The mayor pointed out that Es Satti was looking for work as an imam in the city, where he arrived without a fixed address or residence permit. "This news is a blow to our city," he added in an interview with local media.

"As a city, we have been liberated from the problem of terrorism to a great extent since 2014, and now we are indirectly linked," he lamented. Vilvoorde has fought a hard battle against radicalization in recent years. The town, with less than 40,000 inhabitants, has been one of the municipalities that have exported the most jihadists to Syria to join the ranks of the Islamic State, mainly between 2011 and 2014.

The trips to Belgium of the imam Es Satty are currently covered by a halo of mystery around his activities. The religious man had stated his intention to move to Belgium, and the security forces seek to clarify his motivations. So far, the Belgian authorities have not reported whether he was on their radar, although the first clues indicate that his comings and goings to and from Belgium went unnoticed.

The only one to speak out about him has been Immigration Minister Theo Francken.
"The Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty is not known by the Immigration Service under this name," he published this Sunday in his Twitter account.
Meanwhile, the Belgian Prosecutor's Office says it will collaborate with the Spanish authorities.


BBM

 

[ZaZara]

CAR USED IN ATTACK IN CAMBRILS WAS FLASHED NEAR PARIS A WEEK AGO

LeParisien
http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-dive...ce-la-semaine-derniere-20-08-2017-7203387.php


The black Audi A3, used by the jihadists in the attack of Cambrils, Spain, has passed through France. The vehicle was "flashed", photographed during a speeding offense in the Paris region, about a week before the attacks of Barcelona and Cambrils (14 dead and 126 injured in total). But according to various sources, no operational link with France has emerged at this stage of the investigations. It may have been a simple transit over a longer journey.

The Prosecutor of Paris [responsible for suspected terrorism] has opened an investigation.


BBM


Spanish media say the Audi belonged to Mohammed Aalla, who turned himself in to police after the Barcelona attack. One of Mr Aalla's brothers was killed in Cambrils and another brother, also suspected of belonging to the group, is missing. [Youssef Aalla, brother of Mohammed, possibly died in the explosion of the house in Alcanar.]

 

[margarita25]

Barcelona Terror Attack Van Driver May Have Fled to France, Spain Police Say
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/b...van-driver-may-have-fled-france-spain-n794246

"LONDON — The driver of the van that rammed into crowds on Barcelona's La Rambla, killing 13 people including an American, may have crossed the border into France, Spanish police said Sunday.

“We don't have any specific information on this but it cannot be ruled out," Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero told a news conference in Barcelona.

Trapero said the manhunt continued more than 48 hours after the driver was seen fleeing the scene of the attack on foot."

 

[margarita25]

Spain Terror Attacks Put Muslims in Catalonia Under Harsh Spotlight
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/s...slims-catalonia-under-harsh-spotlight-n794216

"BARCELONA, Spain — As authorities hunted the driver who plowed into a crowd in the Catalan capital, Barcelona, some have expressed concern that the region's large Muslim population puts it at particular risk from Islamic extremism."

Snip

"A*fiery editorial in right-wing newspaper La Razon*branded Catalonia the “capital of Salafism in Spain." With this reference to an ultra-conservative branch of Islam, polemicist Alfonso Ussía took aim at local politicians for avoiding the issue and suggested local Muslims had not shown sufficient anxiety.

The attention from La Razon and others has shone a harsh light on the area’s Muslims — even as those opinions clash with those held by the many in a city that elected a progressive mayor in 2015.

Dozens of Muslims gathered Saturday on La Rambla, the tourist hotspot where the van attack took place, and chanted “Not in my name” and “Islam isn’t terrorism.”

They also held placards emblazoned with “We are all Barcelona” in Catalan, the language of the region."

 

[margarita25]

"David Garrida Guitart, a criminologist based in Barcelona and an expert on Islamic extremism, says some 30 percent of Spain’s almost 300 mosques are in Catalonia, which has a population of about 7.5 million. Around 46.6 million people live in Spain as a whole.

Government statistics, meanwhile, show that authorities in Catalonia conducted 11 anti-terror operations and detained seven suspected extremists in 2017 before the attack — more than any other region in Spain.

The worry now is that “parallel societies” could develop in parts of the country like El Raval, a gritty neighbourhood with a large Muslim population right next to La Rambla, said Garrida Guitart. The district has been dubbed by some as the Molenbeek of Barcelona — a reference to the suburb of Brussels that has been tied to Islamic extremism.

“We’re not talking external ghettos — they are right in the middle of urban centers,” he said. “But people are isolated, some imams don’t speak Spanish.”

Garrida Guitart warned that El Raval could be one of these “parallel populations."”

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/s...slims-catalonia-under-harsh-spotlight-n794216

 

[margarita25]

"As shown by Saturday's demonstration, the anger the recent attacks provoked have compelled members of Catalonia’s 500,000-strong Muslim community to respond.

“We ask forgiveness from the families and the souls that we were not able to take care of these people,” said Javid Mughal, the director of El Mirador dels Immigrants, a newspaper based in El Raval aimed at recent arrivals.

Mughal, whose paper is printed in Urdu, Spanish and Catalan, warned his co-religionists to remain alert to extremism within their own ranks.

“We cannot lower our guard — if we see strange things we have to take them to the police. It affects all of us.”"

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/s...slims-catalonia-under-harsh-spotlight-n794216

 

[margarita25]

"Jamshed Bashir, who was embroiled in a legal dispute with the municipal government after having been expelled as a local counselor, also believes her fellow Muslims have an important role to play in combating extremism. She said they should promote a more inclusive image — one that, for example, includes women."

Snip

"Garrida Guitart, the criminologist, takes a more holistic approach. The key to dealing with extremism is integrating young Muslims into mainstream society overall, he said.

“We have to fight really hard for prevention,” he said. “We have to stop the growth of this ideology from the roots … and this will take an investment from society.”"

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/s...slims-catalonia-under-harsh-spotlight-n794216

 

[margarita25]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/...alunya-barcelona-attack-mass-abouyaaqoub.html