Madrid: Police on Wednesday widened their probe into a terror cell that unleashed carnage in Spain last week, after a suspect admitted the extremists were targeting monuments in Barcelona in an even bigger attack.
Officers carried out new raids to root out a possible support network for the men, accused of ploughing vehicles into pedestrians on Barcelona’s busy Las Ramblas boulevard and a seaside promenade in the resort town of Cambrils, claiming 15 lives including a young boy and wounding more than 120 people.
The international connections of the cell of mostly Moroccan nationals have also come under scrutiny, with talks later on Wednesday between Spain and France’s interior ministers expected to focus on the case.
The scale of the assaults being prepared by the suspects emerged during a preliminary court hearing on Tuesday, when Mohamed Houli Chemlal, 21, told the judge the group was planning “an attack on an even greater scale, targeting monuments” using bombs.
At least 500 litres of acetone, large quantities of nails and detonators as well as gas canisters have been found at a house in the town of Alcanar, court documents said.
They are ingredients of TATP — the explosive of choice of the IS group, which has claimed its “soldiers” carried out the attacks.
But an accidental blast at the bomb factory in Alcanar on August 16, the eve of the Barcelona van attack, forced the cell to alter its plans and turn to vehicles as killing machines.
After a full day court hearing, Chemlal and another suspect, Driss Oukabir, 28, were remanded in custody and charged with terror-related offences. — AFP
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