The flattened ruins of a house in the village of Alcanar have become the center of a massive police investigation into a terror cell suspected of using the house to make bombs.
When an explosion destroyed the house Wednesday night, killing one person and seriously injuring another -- now arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attacks -- it set in train a series of events culminating in the deaths in Barcelona and one more in a second attack in the town of Cambrils.
Early Friday, a group of five attackers wearing fake suicide belts drove into pedestrians in the town of Cambrils, killing one and injuring six. Police shot all five assailants dead, but said late Friday it was "increasingly unlikely" that the Barcelona driver was among them, Reuters reported.
A Catalan police spokesman on Saturday confirmed the names of three of the five suspects killed in Cambrils as Moussa Oukabir, Said Aallaa and Mohamed Hychami.
He also said that Younes Abouyaaqoub, who's wanted in connection with the Barcelona attack, remains on the run. Spanish media report that Abouyaaqoub is a 22-year-old Moroccan national.
Four people have been arrested, three in the town of Ripoll, to the north of Barcelona, and one in the village of Alcanar.
Authorities believe the terror cell involved in the attacks -- believed to number about 12 -- has been "completely dismantled," Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoida said Saturday.
Bulldozer clears rubble in Alcanar
Now the ruins of the house in Alcanar, a quiet beach town about 125 miles south of Barcelona, may hold the key to unraveling the plans and methods of that cell.
Explosives experts brought in a bulldozer Saturday to clear the rubble in Alcanar, before conducting a number of controlled explosions at the site.
Alcanar's vice-mayor, Jordi Bort, told CNN that the house, in the town's Montecarlo area, belonged to a bank and had been illegally squatted by the group without its knowledge.
The town is home to a mix of yearlong residents and some who just spend their holidays or weekends here, he said. The neighbors did not suspect any wrongdoing at the property.
The septic tank of the house, which had only one floor, was being used as storage for the tanks and explosives, Bort said.
Police said Friday there were other "biological remains" found at the site, but it is unclear whether they belong to a different personto the one confirmed dead there.
Source: Traces of TATP found
Wednesday's explosion meant the attackers were unable to use material they were planning to deploy in attacks, Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero said Friday.
The attack in Barcelona, capital of the Spanish region of Catalonia, was therefore "more rudimentary than they originally planned," Trapero said.
Trapero said the suspects in the...
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