Barcelona attack: Key suspect Moussa Oukabir confirmed dead

The driver of a van used to kill at least 13 people in Barcelona remains at large, with police focusing their manhunt on 18-year-old Moussa Oukabir.

Earlier, Spanish media outlets, citing police sources, reported that the alleged van driver of the Barcelona attack, named as Moussa Oukabir, was among those shot and killed in Cambrils later. Police believe the explosion, which killed one person and injured seven others, was caused an attempt to make explosive devices. Police said the men were wearing fake bomb vests.

Five suspects are dead and four people have been detained in connection with the attacks, police said.

Witnesses described the pandemonium that ensued as a white van mounted the curb onto a pedestrian way running down the center of Las Ramblas, a street popular with tourists in the heart of the northeastern Spanish city.

“Everybody was panicking. we just didn’t know what was going to happen”, Gray told The Canadian Press in an interview Friday.

As world leaders united in condemning the carnage, the IS propaganda agency Amaq claimed that it was carried out by “soldiers” from the jihadist group.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says four Australians were injured in the attack. Catalonian media say the man, identified as Francisco López Rodríguez, lived close to the city.

The injured and dead came from 34 countries, ranging from France and Germany to Pakistan and the Philippines, Catalan emergency services said. He did not release the boy’s name.

Ms Cadman’s father-in-law, Tony Cadman, says she is in a serious but stable condition in hospital, but his grandson is missing. “On behalf of the Irish Government, I wish to convey our condolences and solidarity with the people of Spain at this time”, he said.

The dual attacks unnerved a country that hasn’t seen an Islamic extremist attack since 2004, when al-Qaeda-inspired bombers killed 192 people in co-ordinated assaults on Madrid’s commuter trains. “Upon impact, you just start seeing bodies, and you start seeing people sprinting”.

“It wasn’t slowing down at all. It’s not what they had in mind initially”, Trapero said, according to Reuters.

“I saw a foreigner dead with a gunshot in the head”. His friends were crying out “help”. If involved, did the group order or merely inspire the attacks?

Authorities believe the two attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils are directly linked to Wednesday night’s explosion in Alcanar where police discovered at least 20 gas containers.

Barcelona’s current head coach Ernesto Valverde said on the club’s website: “We would like to show our solidarity with the victims and their families in these hard times”.