BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spanish police on Friday shot and killed five people carrying bomb belts who were connected to the Barcelona van attack that killed at least 13, as the manhunt intensified for the perpetrators of Europe’s latest rampage claimed by the Islamic State group.
The Catalan government said police in the popular seaside resort of Cambrils, south of Barcelona, were responding to a second terrorist attack early Friday when they fatally shot five people near the town’s seaside boardwalk.
Police didn’t provide details of the attack, but Spanish media reported that a car had plowed into a police vehicle and civilians in Cambrils, and that officers had shot the attackers, one of whom brandished a knife. Six people, including a police officer, were injured. The bomb squad detonated the bomb belts.
The Cambrils attack came hours after a white van veered onto Barcelona’s picturesque Las Ramblas promenade and mowed down pedestrians, zig-zagging down the strip packed with locals and tourists from around the world. Thirteen people were killed and 100 were injured, 15 of them seriously.