BARCELONA, Spain -- A driver swerved a van onto a wide, tree-shaded sidewalk Thursday in Barcelona's historic Las Ramblas district and targeted pedestrians, killing 13 people and injuring scores of others.
The Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility for the violence, which authorities described as a terrorist attack.
Authorities said 15 people suffered serious injuries and that the death toll could rise. More than 100 people were hurt, said Joaquim Forn, the interior minister of the Catalan regional government.
The van left victims sprawled in the sidewalk and street, spattered with blood or writhing in pain. Some people fled in panic, screaming and carrying young children in their arms.
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Photos by The Associated Press
Photos by The Associated Press
Las Ramblas is a wide avenue lined with vendor stalls and shops that cuts through the center of Barcelona and is one of the city's top tourist destinations. It features a pedestrian-only walkway in the center while cars can travel on both sides of it.
Thursday's attack shattered the peace of a warm summer afternoon in the packed district of Barcelona at the peak of vacation season. The victims were from well beyond the city's borders.
The Islamic State said in a statement on its Aamaq news agency that the attack was carried out by its "soldiers" in response to its calls for followers to target countries that are participating in the coalition trying to drive the terror group out of Syria and Iraq.
Islamic State supporters celebrated the Barcelona attack Thursday and repeated previous threats made against Spain, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity.
Early today, the police force for Spain's Catalonia region said on Twitter that its troopers fatally shot five suspects while responding to a "terrorist attack" in Cambrils, a resort town 62 miles south of Barcelona. Local media outlets reported that the suspects had run over civilians with a car.
The police force said five civilians and one officer were injured, but it did not specify how. Two of the wounded were in critical condition, it said. Police said the suspects carried bomb-laden belts, which were later detonated by the police force's bomb squad.
In the Barcelona attack, citizens from 24 countries were among the people killed and injured.
Authorities said the dead included a Belgian, and the injured included a Greek woman. Australia confirmed that three of its citizens were injured; two others were Taiwanese; and one was from Hong Kong, according to their governments. Germany was investigating whether its citizens were among the dead or injured.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called the killings a "savage terrorist attack" and said Spaniards "are not just united in mourning, but especially in the firm determination to beat those who want to rob us of our values and our way of life."
After the attack, the Las Ramblas district went into lockdown. Swarms of police officers brandishing handguns and automatic weapons began a manhunt in the district, ordering stores, cafes and public transportation hubs to shut down.
Several hours later authorities reported two arrests, one a Spanish citizen from Melilla, a Spanish-run Mediterranean seafront enclave in North Africa, and the other a Moroccan. They declined to identify the detainees.
Josep Lluis Trapero, a senior police official for the Catalonia region, said neither of them was the van's driver, who remained at large after abandoning the van and fleeing on foot.
The arrests took place in the northern Catalan town of Ripoll and in Alcanar, the site of a gas explosion at a house Wednesday night. Police said they were investigating whether the explosion and Thursday's two vehicle attacks were linked.
Spain's public broadcaster, RTVE, and other news outlets named one of the detainees as Driss Oukabir, a French citizen of Moroccan origin. RTVE reported that Oukabir went to police in Ripoll to report that his identity documents had been stolen. Various Spanish media outlets said IDs bearing his name were found in the attack van and that he claimed that his brother might have stolen them.
Media outlets ran photographs of Oukabir that they said police had provided as a way to identify one of the suspects. The regional police told The Associated Press that they had not distributed the photograph. They refused to say if he was one of the two detainees.
Barcelona is the latest European city to experience a terror attack carried out using a vehicle as a weapon and targeting a popular tourist destination. Similar attacks have occurred in France, Germany, Sweden and Britain in recent years.
"London, Brussels, Paris and some other European cities have had the same experience. It's been Barcelona's turn today," said Carles Puigdemont, president of Catalonia's government.
Thursday's bloodshed was Spain's deadliest attack since 2004, when al-Qaida-inspired bombers killed 192 people in coordinated attacks on Madrid's commuter trains. In the years since, Spanish authorities have arrested nearly 200 jihadis. The only other deadly attacks were bombings claimed by the Basque separatist group ETA that killed five people over the past decade, but the ETA declared a cease-fire in 2011.
"Unfortunately, Spaniards know the absurd and irrational pain that terrorism causes. We have received blows like this in recent years, but we also know that terrorists can be beaten," Rajoy said.
Hours after Thursday's attack, the police force for Spain's Catalonia region said troopers searching for the perpetrators shot and killed a man who was in a vehicle that hit two officers at a traffic blockade on the outskirts of Barcelona. Trapero said the driver's actions were not linked to the van attack.
CHAOTIC SCENE
Witnesses described people screaming and running for their lives as the van driver weaved back and forth on the walkway just after 5:30 p.m., apparently trying to hit as many people as he could.
Shortly after, police officers swept through the large pedestrian section near Las Ramblas, moving people out.
Taxi driver Oscar Cano, who witnessed the attack, said the white van suddenly jumped the curb and sped down the central pedestrian area at a high speed for about 500 yards, veering from side to side as it targeted people.
"I heard a lot of people screaming, and then I saw the van going down the boulevard," said Miguel Angel Rizo, another witness. "You could see all the bodies lying through Las Ramblas. It was brutal. A very tough image to see."
Jordi Laparra, a 55-year-old physical education teacher and Barcelona resident, said it initially looked like a terrible traffic accident.
"At first I thought it was an accident, as the van crashed into 10 people or so and seemed to get stuck. But then he maneuvered left and accelerated full speed down the Ramblas, and I realized it was a terrorist attack," Laparra said. "He zigzagged from side to side into the kiosks, pinning as many people as he could, so they had no escape."
"All of sudden, everyone started running, so we ran, too," said Andrew Roby, 35, who was visiting from Washington.
Roby said he saw several people, apparently wounded, lying in front of and beside the van.
Tamara Jurgen, a visitor from the Netherlands, said she and a friend were inside a clothing store steps from the scene and were kept inside until it was safe to leave.
"We were downstairs when it happened, and everyone was screaming and running. We had to run up to the roof and throw our bags over a wall," Jurgen said. "We were all together along this wall, and we were scared we were going to have to jump."
Some locals expressed frustration at authorities' failure to place barricades at the entrances to the Las Ramblas boulevard.
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau announced that a minute of silence will be held today in Barcelona's main square "to show that we are not scared." The nation's prime minister announced three days of national mourning.
U.S., WORLD REACTS
Leaders around the world offered their support and condolences to Barcelona after the attack.
U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter: "The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help. Be tough & strong, we love you!"
Later in the day, Vice President Mike Pence weighed in. "Whoever is responsible should know that the United States of America, together with our allies, will find and punish those responsible, and drive the evil of radical Islamic terror from the face of the Earth," he told reporters in Panama City, where he was wrapping up a tour of Latin America.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said U.S. authorities will help in any way they can. U.S. counterterrorism officials said they were in contact with the Spanish authorities to offer assistance. They underscored that the investigation had just started.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said the United Kingdom "stands with Spain against terror."
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted Thursday evening: "All my thoughts and solidarity from France for the victims of the tragic attack in Barcelona. We will remain united and determined."
Spain has been on a security alert one step below the maximum since June 2015 after attacks elsewhere in Europe and Africa.
Cars, trucks and vans have been the weapons of choice in multiple extremist attacks in Europe in the past few years.
The most deadly was when the driver of a tractor-trailer targeted Bastille Day revelers in the southern French city of Nice in July 2016, killing 86 people. In December 2016, 12 people died after a driver used a hijacked truck to barrel into a Christmas market in Berlin.
There have been multiple attacks this year in London, where a man in a rented SUV plowed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four people before he ran onto the grounds of Parliament and stabbed an unarmed police officer to death in March.
In June, four men drove onto the sidewalk area of London Bridge, attacking people with knives and killing eight. Later in June, another man drove into pedestrians leaving a London mosque.
Information for this article was contributed by Barry Hatton, Joseph Wilson, Ciaran Giles, Albert Stumm and Alan Clendenning of The Associated Press; by Anne-Sophie Bolon, Palko Karasz and James C. Mckinley Jr. of The New York Times; and by William Booth, Michael Birnbaum, William Branigin, Karla Adam, Anne-Marie O'Connor, Souad Mekhennet, Philip Rucker, Brian Murphy, Mark Berman and David Nakamura of The Washington Post.
A Section on 08/18/2017