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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
8/19/2017 8:39:58 PM

Barcelona and Cambrils attacks: What we know so far

  • 19 August 2017
Map showing route of van which drove into crowds in Barcelona

There have been two attacks in Spain's Catalonia region involving people driving cars at crowds at high speeds.

Here is what we know so far.

What happened?

On Thursday afternoon at 16:50 local time (14:50 GMT) a white van smashed into people on Las Ramblas, a famous boulevard in central Barcelona that runs 1.2km (0.75 miles) and was packed with tourists.

The van driver is said to have zig-zagged to try and hit as many people as possible along the pedestrianised area, knocking many to the floor and sending others fleeing for cover in shops and cafes.

He killed 13 people and injured more than 100, and managed to flee the scene.

Spanish police have described it as a terror attack.

What was the second attack?

About eight hours later, an Audi A3 car ploughed into pedestrians in the popular seaside resort town of Cambrils, 110km (68 miles) south-west of Barcelona, authorities said.

A woman who was critically injured later died in hospital. Five other civilians and a police officer were hurt.

The attackers' vehicle overturned and five people who got out, some of whom were wearing fake suicide belts, were then shot by police. Four died at the scene and one later died of his injuries.

The Las Ramblas and Cambrils attacks are believed to be linked.

Who are the main suspects?

The key suspect had been Moussa Oukabir, 17, who was said to have used documents belonging to his brother, Driss Oukabir, 28, to rent the van that mowed down people on Las Ramblas and a second vehicle, later found in the town of Vic and believed to be a getaway car.

An image of Moussa Oukabir, circulated in Spanish press and taken from social media
Image captionAn image of Moussa Oukabir, circulated in Spanish press and taken from social media

But late on Friday, police changed their focus, saying they were no longer certain that Moussa Oukabir had been the driver.

Instead, they pointed to Moroccan-born Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, who lived in the town of Ripoll, 100km (60 miles) north of Barcelona. El Pais newspaper said there was a growing belief that Abouyaacoub was the main suspect.

The change in police attention came after it became clear that Moussa Oukabir was one of the five shot dead in the Cambrils attack. Two others named by police were Said Aallaa, 18, and Mohamed Hychami, 24.

AbouyaacoubImage copyrightAFP/GETTY
Image captionAbouyaaqoub, 22, is believed to be on the run

Little is known of Moussa Ouakabir, although both brothers had Moroccan as well as Spanish nationality. He was from the northern Catalan city of Girona.

His brother Driss - who reportedly turned himself in, saying his documents had been stolen to rent the vehicles - was arrested in Ripoll on Thursday.

Catalonia's Interior Minister Joaquim Forn, quoted by the Associated Press, said of the Barcelona attacker: "We had local police on the scene, but we were unable to shoot him, as the Ramblas were packed with people."

Who else has been arrested?

Four others, all reportedly of Moroccan origin. One person from Spain's north African enclave of Melilla was arrested on Thursday after an explosion in Alcanar, south-west of Barcelona, on Wednesday night.

Further arrests were made on Friday, including in Ripoll.

It remains unclear how many people were involved in the plots.

Why is the Alcanar explosion important?

The house that blew up in Alcanar on Wednesday night. Picture shows lots of rubble and many gas canistersImage copyrightEPA
Image captionMany gas canisters were found at the scene of an explosion in Alcanar

Police are linking the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks to the blast Wednesday night that completely destroyed a house in Alcanar, 200km south of Barcelona, killing one person and wounding seven. The house was reportedly filled with bottles of propane and butane.

Police said on Friday that they believed the blast had thwarted plans for an even bigger attack.

"They were preparing one or several attacks in Barcelona and an explosion in Alcanar stopped this as they no longer had the material they needed to commit attacks of an even bigger scope," said Catalonia police official Josep Lluis Trapero.

In another incident, a car was driven into officers at a checkpoint at Sant Just Desvern on the outskirts of Barcelona on Thursday evening.

They opened fire. A man was later found dead in the passenger seat of the car with stab wounds. The dead man is not linked to the Las Ramblas attack, officials say, but investigations are ongoing.

One theory is that the car was stolen and the man was killed by the carjacker, who is still at large.

Aftermath of Barcelona attack in pictures

Who are the victims?

They come from all over the world, with at least 34 nationalities represented.

People from Ireland, the UK, France, Australia, Pakistan, Venezuela, Algeria, Peru, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Ecuador, the US, Argentina, Romania, Cuba, Austria and the Philippines are all reported to be among those hurt.

Read more about the victims

Francisco López Rodríguez, a 60-year-old from Granada, is the first Spanish victim to be named. Belgium said one of its citizens had been killed and Italy's foreign ministry said two Italians had died.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed that at least one US citizen had been killed.

Father-of-three Jared Tucker, 43, was on honeymoon with his wife of one year, Heidi Nunes, when he died, his father said.

Mr Tucker had been enjoying drinks on Las Ramblas when the van struck him.

Canadian national Ian Moore Wilson, father of a Vancouver police officer, was also named as a victim. His wife, Valerie, was injured.

France said 26 of its nationals were injured, 11 seriously.

The Australian government said at least four citizens were injured, while a seven-year-old boy from Sydney is reported to be missing. Thirteen German citizens were wounded, some seriously.

A "small number" of Britons were injured, the UK's Foreign Office said.

Who is responsible?

So-called Islamic State (IS) has said it was behind the Las Ramblas attack and that IS "soldiers" carried it out. But it did not provide any evidence or details to back up the claim.

Why Spain?

The country is one of Europe's most popular tourist destinations but in recent years has not seen the kind of jihadist violence that has rocked France, the UK, Belgium and Germany.

Still, Spain has been targeted before - several trains in Madrid, the capital, were bombed by al-Qaeda inspired militants in 2004, killing 191 people.

Media captionWhat was it like to be caught up in the Barcelona attack?

The IS news outlet, Amaq, said the attack was carried out as part of efforts to target states fighting in the US-led anti-IS coalition.

A few hundred Spanish soldiers are in Iraq, training local forces fighting the Sunni militant group.

How much jihadist activity is there in the country?

The number of operations carried out against jihadists has increased significantly since Spain raised its terror alert level to four out of five in June 2015, meaning there was a "high risk" of a terror attack.

Before these attacks, 51 suspected jihadists had already been detained in the country this year, while 69 were detained last year, and 75 were detained in 2015, according to El Pais.

Spain's long anti-terror experience

Security and surveillance was stepped up in the wake of truck attacks in the French city of Nice in July 2016 and the German capital Berlin in December.

On Twitter, the Spanish royal household posted: "They are murderers, nothing more than criminals who are not going to terrorise us. All of Spain is Barcelona."

How has the world reacted?

World leaders have offered support and message of solidarity.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was "sickened by the senseless loss of life in Barcelona".

US President Donald Trump quickly condemned the attack on Twitter but has come under fire for invoking a debunked myth about a general who fought Islamist militants by using pig's blood to commit mass executions.



(bbc.com)



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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
8/19/2017 11:10:37 PM

'Free speech rally' cut short after massive counterprotest

STEVE LeBLANC


A counterprotester, left, confronts a supporter of President Donald Trump at a "Free Speech" rally by conservative activists on Boston Common, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017, in Boston. Thousands of counterprotesters marched through downtown Boston on Saturday, chanting anti-Nazi slogans and waving signs condemning white nationalism ahead of a rally being staged by conservative activists a week after a Virginia demonstration turned deadly. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

BOSTON (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators chanting anti-Nazi slogans converged Saturday on downtown Boston in a boisterous repudiation of white nationalism, dwarfing a small group of conservatives who cut short their planned "free speech rally" a week after a gathering of hate groups led to bloodshed in Virginia.

An estimated 15,000 counterprotesters marched through the city to historic Boston Common, where many gathered near a bandstand abandoned early by conservatives who had planned to deliver a series of speeches. Police vans later escorted the conservatives out of the area, and angry counterprotesters scuffled with armed officers trying to maintain order.

Organizers of the midday event, billed as a "Free Speech Rally," have publicly distanced themselves from the neo-Nazis, white supremacists and others who fomented violence in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. A woman was killed at that Unite the Right rally, and scores of others were injured, when a car plowed into counterdemonstrators.

Opponents feared that white nationalists might show up in Boston anyway, raising the specter of ugly confrontations in the first potentially large and racially charged gathering in a major U.S. city since Charlottesville. But only a few dozen conservatives turned out for the rally on historic Boston Common — in stark contrast to the estimated 15,000 counterprotesters — and the conservatives abruptly left early.

One of the planned speakers of the conservative activist rally said the event "fell apart."

Congressional candidate Samson Racioppi, who was among several slated to speak, told WCVB-TV that he didn't realize "how unplanned of an event it was going to be."

Some counterprotesters dressed entirely in black and wore bandannas over their faces. They chanted anti-Nazi and anti-fascism slogans, and waved signs that said: "Make Nazis Afraid Again," ''Love your neighbor," ''Resist fascism" and "Hate never made U.S. great." Others carried a large banner that read: "SMASH WHITE SUPREMACY."

"I came out today to show support for the black community and for all minority communities," said Rockeem Robinson, 21, a youth counselor from Cambridge.

He said he wasn't concerned about his personal safety because he felt more support on his side.

Related Video

news, TV and more Yahoo View, available on iOS and Android." data-reactid="43" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;">Katie Griffiths, 48, a social worker also from Cambridge, who works with members of poor and minority communities, said she finds the hate and violence happening "very scary."

"I see poor people and people of color being scapegoated," she said. "Unlearned lessons can be repeated."

TV cameras showed a group of boisterous counterprotesters on the Common chasing a man with a Trump campaign banner and cap, shouting and swearing at him. But other counterprotesters intervened and helped the man safely over a fence into the area where the conservative rally was to be staged. Black-clad counterprotesters also grabbed an American flag out of an elderly woman's hands, and she stumbled and fell to the ground.

Yet Saturday's showdown was mostly peaceable, and after demonstrators dispersed, a picnic atmosphere took over with stragglers tossing beach balls, banging on bongo drums and playing reggae music.

The Boston Free Speech Coalition, which organized the event, said it has nothing to do with white nationalism or racism and its group is not affiliated with the Charlottesville rally organizers in any way.

"We are strictly about free speech," the group said on its Facebook page. "We denounce the politics of supremacy and violence."

Dating to 1634, Boston Common is the nation's oldest city park. The leafy downtown park is popular with locals and tourists and has been the scene of numerous rallies and protests for centuries.

Rallies also were planned in cities across the country, including Dallas, Atlanta and New Orleans.

Hundreds of people gathered at City Hall in Austin, Texas, Saturday morning, holding signs in support of racial equality. The Austin American-Statesmen reported organizers for the Rally Against White Supremacy estimated about 1,200 people were in attendance.

___

Associated Press writers Crystal Hill and William J. Kole contributed to this report.


(YahooNews)


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
8/19/2017 11:26:16 PM

Finland stabbings 'a likely terror act;' Ties to Spain eyed

JARI TANNER


A woman places a candle by floral tributes for the victims of an attack at Turku Market Square on Friday, in Turku, Finland, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. A suspect detained for allegedly stabbing two people to death in a wild knife attack in the western Finnish city of Turku is being investigated for murder with possible terrorist intent, police said Saturday. (Vesa Moilanen/Lehtikuva via AP)

HELSINKI (AP) — The knife attack in western Finland that left two people dead and seven others wounded is "a likely terror act," Finland's intelligence agency said Saturday, while police said Europol was investigating if it had any ties to deadly vehicle attacks in Spain.

The suspect — an 18-year-old Moroccan asylum-seeker — was shot and wounded in the thigh by police during his rampage Friday in the city of Turku. He was hospitalized under guard — still in intensive care Saturday — and is being investigated for murder with possible terrorist intent, police said.

His name has not been released but investigators say he came to Finland in early 2016 seeking asylum.

"It's likely at this moment that we're dealing with a terror attack," intelligence agency investigator Pekka Hiltunen said, adding that it was investigating the suspect's connections to the Islamic State group, since IS "has previously encouraged this kind of behavior."

The agency however did not change the country's threat assessment following the Friday attack.

Crista Granroth of the National Bureau of Investigation said the suspect's attack was very focused.

"We think the attacker was going after women," Granroth said, adding that one man was slashed with the knife when he tried to stand between the attacker and a woman.

The suspect has yet to be questioned, while four others, also Moroccans living in Turku who know him, were detained on suspicion of involvement. An international arrest warrant had been issued for a sixth person, police said, declining to elaborate.

The two dead were Finnish women, while the seven wounded included four Finns, and one Italian, one Briton and one Swedish man. Two of the wounded were still in intensive care. The youngest victim was 15, the oldest 67, police said.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila told a news conference that if confirmed as an act of terrorism, "it's the first time Finland has encountered such a terror act."

"Finland is not an island," he said. "We have feared something like this but we have been prepared," Sipila said, called the attack "a cowardly act."

Sipila told reporters he had spoken with several European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, about the attack.

The NBI said investigators were working with colleagues from the Finnish Security Intelligence Service, police in Turku and the European Union's police agency, Europol. Robin Lardot, head of the NBI, said Europol was helping to check whether there are connections to the vehicle attacks in Barcelona but refused to elaborate.

The Swedish security service said it was helping its Finnish colleagues.

In June, the Finnish Security Intelligence Service raised its threat assessment to the second level of a four-step scale, citing the Nordic country's "stronger profile within the radical Islamist propaganda." Finland was now considered part of the coalition against the Islamic State group, it said.

A man from Sweden who was stabbed in the arm had tried to help another victim who died.

"I tried to stop the violent bleeding from her throat ... The woman was so badly injured that she died in my arms," Hassan Zubier told the Expressen tabloid.

The Ilta-Sanomat tabloid said one of the dead was a local Jehovah's Witness who was handing out leaflets at a central Turku square. The religious group told the tabloid they believed the woman was randomly attacked.

Flowers and candles were placed on a square in Turku, and Finnish flags flew at half-staff across the country.

"We need to stick together now, hate is not to be answered by hate," Sipila, the prime minister, said in a tweet. A minute of silence was planned for Sunday at 10 a.m.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, wrote on Twitter that "Europeans stand with #Turku and called it "another cowardly terrorist attack on innocents."

___

Associated Press writer Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark contributed.


(Yahoo News)


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
8/20/2017 10:35:06 AM

Police raids house of missing imam over suspected links to Catalonia terrorist attacks

Edited time: 20 Aug, 2017 05:03


A bedroom is seen after the police raided the flat where imam Abdelbaki Es Satty lived in Ripoll, north of Barcelona, Spain, August 19, 2017 © Susana Vera / Reuters

Catalan investigators have raided the house of an imam in search of possible links to the twin terrorist attacks in the Spanish city of Barcelona and a nearby coastal town of Cambrils, which left 14 dead and over 100 injured.

Early Saturday morning, police in the town of Ripoll raided the home of the local Muslim cleric, who authorities believe might have served as the spiritual leader of the terrorist cell involved in the dual attacks on Thursday and Friday.

Officers were reportedly seeking to find DNA samples of the cleric, identified as Abdelbaki Es Satty, which might link him to the terrorist hideout in Alcanar, where an explosion destroyed a house on Wednesday.

The Alcanar house reportedly served as the base from which the terrorists were preparing their attacks. The imam went missing several days ago and was last seen Tuesday, Reuters reported citing Es Satty’s landlord.
Investigators believe he might be one of the two dead persons discovered in the rubble of the house in Alcanar.

Authorities did not find the imam in the small apartment. One of the rooms, reports say, was sublet to a Moroccan. In the living room, police discovered a mattress with the sheets on the floor, a five-seater corner sofa and a TV, El Pais reports.

Es Satty has been a practicing imam in Ripoll since 2015 and taught Arabic classes to young children of the congregation. 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 currently on the run.
Satty could have also influenced Said Aallaa, another terrorist cell member, who came from the town of Ribes de Freser, 13 kilometers from Ripoll.

The Ripoll imam was allegedly imprisoned at Castellón jail between 2010 and 2012 for drug-related offenses, according to anti-terrorist sources cited by El Confidencial. Neighbors of the cleric, however, note his humble behavior and his ability not to stand out from the crowd.

Authorities believe the two attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils are directly linked to Wednesday night's explosion in Alcanar where police discovered a stockpile of explosive material, including traces of triacetate triperoxide (TATP). The terrorists apparently planned to use the hideout to produce the highly unstable and jihadist-approved explosive, dubbed the “Mother of Satan,” El Pais reported.

The terrorists originally planned a much bigger attack, allegedly eyeing Gaudi’s iconic Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona as one of its potential targets, El Espanol reported. The publication added, that the cell planned to use three hired vans loaded with explosives to carry out the atrocities.

Investigators believe that an accidental explosion in Alcanar prevented the suspects from carrying out their plot which was planned for months in advance.

“They were preparing one or several attacks in Barcelona and an explosion in Alcanar stopped this as they no longer had the material they needed to commit attacks of an even bigger scope,” the head of Catalonia’s police, Josep Lluis Trapero, noted earlier.

On Thursday, a man plowed a van into pedestrians on a popular tourist street in Barcelona, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100 others. Hours later, terrorists launched a second attack in the seaside town of Cambrils, injuring seven people, one of whom later died.

Police killed and identified five terrorist cell members and detained four suspects believed to be behind the attacks. At least one remains at large. Spanish media have suggested that authorities are searching for 22-year-old Moroccan national Younes Abouyaaqoub – believed to be the mastermind of the double attacks.


(RT)


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
8/20/2017 11:01:11 AM



Philippines President Brags About Killing 32 People in One Night

August 18, 2017 at 12:57 pm

(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) This week, police in the Philippines killed 32 people in one night in a series of drug raids near Manila, the Guardian reported.

The recent spate of deaths between Monday and Tuesday came only hours before President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to kill human rights groups that get in the way of his brutal war on drugs.

According to the Guardian, Supt. Romeo Caramat said 67 police operations in various parts of the Bulacan province had left 32 “drug personalities” dead and more than 100 in custody.

“We wanted to shock and awe these drug personalities,” he said, according to the Guardian. “Other drug personalities will think twice before continuing with their drug trade.”

Since Duterte took office last July, government figures show that police have killed close to 3,500 “drug personalities.” However, the real death toll is reportedly much higher, with some estimates suggesting well over 7,000 have been killed.

Clearly, the Philippines is grappling a unique drug problem, but it can be safely assumed that Duterte’s current strategy will not pay off in the long run. There are many parts of the country that are viable for cannabis cultivation, and even though many of these plantations have been destroyed, the local distribution of marijuana has only increased.

Unsurprisingly, poverty is deemed to be the major factor behind the Philippines’ current drug problem.

“There wasn’t enough employment, or social resources, so everyone needed a second job,” said Clarke Jones, a professor at Australian National University who has studied drug dealing in the Philippines, the LA Times reports. “Duterte might be trying to eliminate the drug market — which will never happen, by the way — but he’s failed to realize, what’s going to replace those funds?”

Many people in the Philippines are hugely reliant on overseas remittances, which account for about 10 percent of the Philippines’ annual GDP. This is why more than 10 million Filipinos work overseas; the country does not provide a stable financial environment for much of the local population. As long as there is poverty, one can expect to find drug-related crime, no matter how many people Duterte kills.

Despite this very clear drug-related issue, police have allegedly been planting evidence to justify the spate of killings in Duterte’s war.

“Our investigations into the Philippine drug war found that police routinely kill drug suspects in cold blood and then cover up their crime by planting drugs and guns at the scene,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. “President Duterte’s role in these killings makes him ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands.”

In that context, it makes sense that Duterte views Human Rights Watch as an entity to violently attack if it continues to get in Duterte’s way.

Despite these allegedly blatant human rights violations, President Trump took to praise Duterte’s efforts in a phone call in May of this year.“What a great job you are doing,” he told him.

Duterte is seen as somewhat of a hero among anti-imperialists because he has stood up to American hostility, even inviting the CIA to assassinate him. But the truth is that, by his own admission, Duterte is a cold-blooded killer who seems to believe all of his country’s problems can be solved through violence. He has said:

“In Davao [when Duterte was mayor] I used to do it [kill] personally. Just to show to the guys [police] that if I can do it why can’t you.

“And I’d go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also. I was really looking for a confrontation so I could kill,” he also said.

Perhaps Duterte’s policies are managing to take some dangerous drug-cartel criminals off the streets, but what are we to make of the people whose murders are being justified as a result of authorities planting drugs on them? What should we make of the current poverty issue, which is clearly not being dealt with or addressed?

Very few countries would brag about killing 32 people in one night, and in light of this, it is no surprise that political opponents have attempted to bring Duterte to the international criminal court for his alleged crimes against humanity.

Op-ed / Creative Commons / Anti-Media /





"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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