21 August, 2017
Unlike other vehicle attacks Europe has endured in the last two years - in Nice, Berlin, Stockholm and London - Friday's in Barcelona displayed an unusual degree of sophistication and coordination.
Catalan investigators raided the house of an imam in the town of Ripoll they believe may have overseen the cell which killed 14 people in twin terrorist attacks in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils.
Sky News reported that the raid was conducted as the police believed that Imam may have radicalised the Barcelona and Cambrils attackers.
Those who knew him described Abdelbaki Es Satty as a discreet and religious man, who had recently asked for a holiday from the mosque he was preaching in, apparently to return to Morocco for personal business. He has not seen Es Satty since July.
Police made the announcement on Twitter without providing further details. He is believed to be the religious mentor of several of the identified terrorists who lived in the same town, namely: brothers Driss and Moussa Oukabirm as well as Mohammed Hychami and Younes Abouyaaqoub, who is considered the mastermind of the Barcelona attack and now on the run. The Spanish broadcaster RTVE said that human remains of one of the blast casualties could correspond to the missing cleric. On Wednesday night, a house in the Spanish town of Alcanar exploded during what police believe was a botched bomb-making effort carried out by those linked to the Barcelona attack.
Spanish media believe Younes may have been the man who drove the van into crowds in Barcelona. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Es Satty appears to the only one of the suspects whose name had already crossed the radar of the police. He was jailed in Castellón in Valencia in 2010 for smuggling cannabis, and released in 2014. It is reported that while in prison he met Rachid Aglif, who is serving 18 years for his part in the 2004 Madrid bomb attacks that left 192 dead and about 2,000 people wounded. Numerous group appeared to the outside world as "normal" men, interested in sport and girls. The man said he had only lived with the imam for a month and that he did not know the men involved in the terror attacks. According to the mosque head, Es Satty recently told his colleagues he would be going to his home country of Morocco for three months.
The young men, suspected of plowing down pedestrians in Barcelona, also hailed from Ripoll, a sleepy mountain town about 60 miles from Catalonia's capital.
All grew up in Ripoll, other than Aallaa, who is from the nearby town of Ribes de Freser.
In addition to the 13 killed in Barcelona on August 17, a woman died in a second vehicle attack early on August 18 in the town of Cambrils.
Abouyaaqoub is thought to have disappeared into the side streets off Las Ramblas after Thursday's murderous attack. Police believe he may have escaped from the scene on a metro train, then hijacked a auto and killed its driver before disappearing. "I'd tell him to hand himself in and tell the truth".
Es Satty's former mosque denounced the deadly attacks on Sunday, while on Saturday, weeping relatives of the attackers, members of the Ripoll's Spanish-Moroccan community of around 500 people, marched into a square in the town and tearfully denied any knowledge of the murderous plans of their sons and brothers.
The 43-year-old man said he knew the young suspects in the attacks, as he had organised football matches with them. "They were good boys". I think the problem is what they are told, what they are taught. If they had attended more often, he added, they would have understood that such attacks have nothing to do with Islam.
