On the afternoon of 17 August 2017, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub drove a vaninto pedestrians onLa Rambla street inBarcelona, Catalonia, Spain, killing 13 people and injuring at least 130 others, one of whom died 10 days later on 27 August. Abouyaaqoub fled the attack on foot, then killed another person in order to steal the victim's car to make his escape.[2][3][4]
Nine hours after the Barcelona attack, five men thought to be members of the same terrorist cell drove into pedestrians in nearbyCambrils, killing one woman and injuring six others. All five of those attackers were shot and killed by police.[5]
The night before the Barcelona attack, an explosion occurred in a house in the Catalan town ofAlcanar, destroying the building and killing two members of the terrorist cell, including the 40-year-oldimam thought to be the mastermind.[6] The home had more than 120 gas canisters inside which police believe the cell was attempting to make into one large bomb (or three smaller bombs to be placed in three vans that they had rented) but which they accidentally detonated.[7][4]
ThePrime Minister of Spain,Mariano Rajoy, called the attack in Barcelona ajihadist attack.[8]Amaq News Agency attributed indirect responsibility for the attack to the Islamic State.[9] The attacks were the deadliest in Spain since the March2004 Madrid train bombings and the deadliest in Barcelona since the1987 Hipercor bombing.[10] Younes Abouyaaqoub, the driver of the van in the Barcelona attack, was killed by police in Subirats, a town 31 kilometres (19 mi) west of Barcelona on 21 August.[4]
A 2022 statement by former Spanish police commissionerJosé Manuel Villarejo appeared to suggest in the Spanish High Court that the SpanishNational Intelligence Service was aware of the attacks.[11][12] Others have dismissed this statement as a conspiracy theory.[13]
Distance covered by the van, during the attack."Paviment Miró" - where the van stopped after the attack in Las Ramblas
At 16:56CEST (UTC+2) on 17 August 2017,[14] Younes Abouyaaqoub drove a whiteFiat Talento van onto thepavement ofBarcelona'sLa Rambla, crashing into pedestrians for about 550 metres (1,800 ft) betweenPlaça de Catalunya andLiceu before stopping on theJoan Miró mosaic. Witnesses said the vehicle zigzagged at high speed down the street, ramming pedestrians and cyclists.[15]
The numerous impacts the van had received caused the airbag to inflate and the driver protection system to automatically shut down the electrical system of the van, causing it to halt. In the confusion, Abouyaaqoub was able to get away. He fled on foot and made his way to the university district before hijacking a car and stabbing the driver to death.[16]
The van used in the La Rambla attack was rented in the neighbouring area ofSanta Perpètua de Mogoda,[17] along with a similar van, considered to be agetaway vehicle, and found by 19:00 inVic.[18] Younes Abouyaaqoub's credit card was used to pay for the van rental.[19]
In a policepress conference at 19:00 local time, a spokesperson confirmed the terrorist nature of the event.[20][21]
Ramming of a police barricade on Avinguda Diagonal
About two hours after the attack on La Rambla, a whiteFord Focus rammed a police barricade inAvinguda Diagonal, leaving an officer injured.[22] The vehicle fled to a neighboring area,Sant Just Desvern, and the driver abandoned the car near the building known asWalden 7. The police found a man stabbed to death in the rear seat who, they believe, was murdered by the Ramblas driver who had escaped by hijacking the car.[23]
On August 16, the day before the Barcelona attacks, an explosion destroyed a house inAlcanar. Abdelbaki Es Satty and another man, Youssef Aallaa, died in the Alcanar explosion.[24][25]
Police initially thought it was an accidentalgas explosion, but hours later believed the explosion was caused by stockpiled explosives accidentally going off. A Moroccan man was injured in the explosion and taken to the hospital. The explosiveTATP[26] and 120 canisters ofbutane andpropane were found inside the house.[27][28] Catalan bomb squads carried out a controlled explosion at the property where the gas canisters were stored. There was speculation that the terrorists intended to take trucks loaded with explosives and combustible gas to attack theSagrada Família.[29]
Police said they were working under the hypothesis that the terrorists shot in Cambrils were connected to the Barcelona attack and Alcanar explosions.[30] Police chief Josep Lluís Trapero believed terrorists were in the process of manipulating the gas canisters when they exploded, after which they decided to continue their plans by conducting more rudimentary vehicle ramming attacks.[31]
A second explosion occurred at the same location during excavation, possibly caused by a spark from abackhoe igniting a gas canister among the debris.[32] At least nine people were injured, with one police officer in critical condition.[33]
Passeig Marítim – the location of the second car attack
At about 21:30 on 17 August, Houssaine Abouyaaqoub, Omar Hichamy, Mohamed Hichamy, Moussa Oukabir, and Said Aalla were seen on a security camera at a local shop purchasing four knives and one axe.[34]
At around 1:00 am on 18 August in Cambrils, the five men drove anAudi A3 automobile into a crowd of pedestrians before it rolled over at the intersection of Passeig Miramar, Passeig Marítim, and Rambla de Jaume I streets.[35] The five individuals inside were wearing fakesuicide vests and attacked bystanders with knives. They stabbed a 63-year-old Spanish woman to death[36] and injured six other people in the attack, including a Cuban tourist and a police officer.[37]
A police officer shot and killed four of the assailants, while a fifth died of his injuries hours later.[38] Bystanders filmed one of the assailants being shot by police as he ran towards them.[10] The men were linked to the Barcelona attack according to the police.[39]
On 21 August, police shot and killed Younes Abouyaaqoub in an area of vineyards near the train tracks, thanks to the call of a neighbor of the town warning that there was a stranger in the vicinity of the town who could be the terrorist from Las Ramblas.[40]
Aside from eight attackers,[96] 16 people of nine nationalities were killed: 14 who were struck by the van in La Rambla, including one who died from injuries ten days after the attack,[2] one stabbed in Barcelona by the La Rambla attacker when the attacker stole his car, and one who was struck by the car in Cambrils. Eleven of the victims were foreign nationals, ten of them tourists.[97] More than 130 people from over 34 nations were injured, many critically.[4]
The imam Abdelbaki Es Satty died in the Alcanar gas explosion on 16 August,[98] as did Youssef Aalla, brother of Said Aallaa.[99] Five suspected members were shot dead by police on 18 August after the Cambrils attack: Moussa Oukabir, Omar Hychami, El Houssaine Abouyaaqoub, Said Aallaa and Mohamed Hychami. Younes Abouyaaqoub, the man believed to have been the van driver, was killed by police on 21 August.[100][101] Four additional suspects were detained by police.[102][103][104]
Younes Abouyaaqoub, aged 22, was born on 1 January 1995 inM'rirt,Morocco, and had lived in Ripoll, Spain, since he was four years old.[105][106] He was the driver of the van that killed 13 people on La Rambla. He initially fled the scene of the attack on La Rambla through theMercat de la Boqueria,[107][108] then hijacked a car near theZona Universitària station, stabbing the driver, Pau Pérez, to death.[109] On 21 August, police caught up with him inSubirats, a village near Barcelona. He was wearing a fake suicide vest and shouted "Allahu Akbar" before police shot and killed him.[110][111][100]
According to police sources, his identity documents were found in the second van, which was intercepted by Catalan police in Vic.[106] His mother told the press that her son had been brainwashed by theimamAbdelbaki Es Satty.[112]
Houssaine Abouyaaqoub, aged 19, was the brother of Younes Abouyaaqoub and one of the attackers killed in Cambrils in the early hours of 18 August.[113] He was a deliveryman for a kebab restaurant in Ripoll.[114] Both Abouyaaqoub brothers were first cousins of Mohamed and Omar Hychami.[115]
Moussa Oukabir was 17 at the time of the attack.[4] He was shot and killed by police after the Cambrils attack.[116]
TheFiat Talento van used in the La Rambla attack had been rented using the ID of Oukabir's brother[117] who told police that Moussa Oukabir had stolen his ID.[10]
Moussa Oukabir had been living legally in Spain since 2005.[118] In 2014 and 2015, he playedfutsal (a form of indoor football) for the local Ripoll youth team.[119] In 2015, when asked on the social media website Kiwi what he would do in his first day as king of the world, he responded, "Kill the infidels and only spare Muslims who follow the religion."[120][121] Moussa's brother has told the judge that Moussa had increased his prayer frequency, chided him for not spending time with Muslims only, and had told him that Muslims have to do "jihad, which implies war".[122][123]
Said Aallaa, 19, was born in Naour, Morocco.[124] He had been living in Ribes de Freser, Spain, a village near Ripoll.[125]
He was shot and killed by police after the Cambrils attack.[116][126]La Vanguardia reported that Aallaa's social media contained photographs of firearms and that his religiosity was evidenced by his membership in Islamic study groups.[127] Said had left a note in his room apologising for the harm he was about to cause.[128]
Aalla's death in the explosion at Alcanar was later confirmed by police from DNA at the explosion site.[129] Like all the other suspects, Youssef was born in Morocco.[130] Youssef was a brother of Said Aallaa. Their father said Youssef attended the mosque.[131]
Mohamed Hychami, aged 24 was born in Mrirt, Morocco.[132] He was the cousin of Younes Abouyaaqoub, the driver of the van in the La Rambla attack. He was in the Audi used in the Cambrils attack and was shot and killed by police there.[116][133] Hychami's mother told the media that Mohamed had said he was leaving on vacation and would return in a week.[134]
Omar Hychami was 21, and was born in Mrirt, Morocco. He was the brother of fellow attacker Mohamed Hychami, and the cousin of the Rambla van driver Younes Abouyaaqoub. He worked for an agriculturalconstruction sector.[135]
Abdelbaki Es Satty was a 44-year-old imam in Ripoll who was born in Morocco in 1973 and arrived in Spain in 2002.[136][137][138] He was convicted of drug smuggling in 2014 and was to be deported from Spain, but Es Satty claimed deportation violated hishuman rights and he remained in Spain. A successful asylum application in November 2014 facilitated him moving freely in the 26 EU countries of theSchengen area.[139] On 21 August, he was confirmed to have died in the accidental explosion in Alcanar on 16 August.[24][140] As the imam thought to have been important in radicalising the other terrorists, he has been considered the "mastermind" of the planned attacks.[141]
Es Satty had been renting a room in the house for four months.[142][143] Es Satty, who had been employed as imam at the Ripoll mosque since 2015,[144] quit "abruptly" in June.[145] He had also stayed in Belgium for approximately three months in 2016, where he had been searching for work, including in Vilvoorde.[128] Investigators believe the imam might be aligned with theSalafist movement, but this might not be unusual, as one in three Islamic prayer centers in Catalonia is.[146]
He has been described as "unfailingly courteous and studiously discreet", betraying no radicalism in his appearance and interactions with those who did not know him, and training those in his terrorist cell to also lead double lives.[147]
Police arrested four men in connection with the attacks. Three of the men were arrested in Ripoll: the owner of the car used in the Cambrils attack, the brother of Moussa Oukabir, and a third man. In Alcanar, 20-year-old Mohamed Houli Chemlal, who survived the Alcanar explosion, was also arrested.[148] Mohamed Houli Chemlal and Driss Oukabir have been charged with membership of a terror organisation and murder, with Mohamed also being charged with possession of explosives. Both were found to be guilty by theAudiencia Nacional in 2021, although being acquitted of terrorist homicide charges.[149] By 24 August 2017, two of the suspects, Salh El Karib and Mohamed Aalla, had been released on certain conditions, including that they hand over their passports.[150]
During February 2025 trial, Mohamed Houli accusedCNI to let Abdelbaki Es Satty to form the cell.[151]
The Economist portrayed the motivation for this 2017 attack in Spain as rather 'less obvious', Spain being 'a minor player in the campaign against ISIS and other groups', though admittedly Spain contributed 150 soldiers toOperation Serval fighting Islamic militants in Mali, and in online propaganda linked to ISIL theSagrada Família basilica was suggested as a possible target and ISIL was suggested to have boasted about recovering the Islamic lands ofAl-Andalus.[10]
The day after the attacks, a minute's silence led by KingFelipe VI, Catalan presidentCarles Puigdemont, and Barcelona mayorAda Colau was observed atPlaça de Catalunya, which ended with applause and chants of "No tinc por" ("I am not afraid").[155] During the following days candles and flowers were left at theJoan Miró mosaic at La Rambla, in memory of the victims. The King andQueen also left a wreath in the name of the Crown.[156]
On 26 August 2017, a large crowd marched down thePasseig de Gràcia in Barcelona in a protest against the terror attacks. The march was called by the city council and Catalan government. Some people booed the King of Spain and displayed signs blaming the Head of State for the Spanish arms sales. Other demonstrators displayed Spanish and Catalan flags.[157][158][159][160]
On 10 September 2017, the security and emergency services were awarded the Medal of Honour of the Catalan Parliament (Medalla d'Honor del Parlament de Catalunya). With this medal theCatalan Parliament recognises the dedication, effort, and courage of theMossos d'Esquadra,Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona, Local Police of Cambrils, and the Emergency Services. TheMajor of the Catalan Police,Josep Lluís Trapero Álvarez, collected the award and made a speech mourning the victims.[161]
The first author of the video was identified as Abu Lais Al Qurtubí (el Cordobés in Spanish)[172] or Abu Laiz al Qurtubi,[173] named Muhammad Yasin Ahram Pérez,[174] Tomasa Pérez's oldest son, whoconverted to Islam after hermarriage to the Moroccan Abdelah Ahram.[175] He said "If you can’t make the hegira (journey) to the Islamic State, carry out jihad where you are; jihad doesn’t have borders. Allah willing, Al Andalus will become again what it was, part of the caliphate. Spanish Christians, don’t forget the Muslim blood spilt during the Spanish inquisition. We will take revenge for your massacre, the one you are carrying out now against Islamic State".[176] The hooded author has been identified as Abu Salman Al-Andalus[177] or Abu Salman al-Andalusí (el andaluz).[178] Pérez stated: "We hope that Allah accepts the sacrifice of our brothers in Barcelona. Our war with you will continue until the world ends."[179]
The threatening video to Gibraltar was published by Abu Albara Bin Malik and spread byAl Wafa.[169] The threatening video was produced in Wilayat Jair,Deir Ezzor,Syria. According toSahrawi journalist Bachir Mohamed Lahsen, terrorists only publish threats forpropagandistic use and they should not be taken seriously.[180]
In May 2021, theNational Audience court sentenced three members of the jihadist organization which committed the attacks in 2017. Two of the accused, Mohamed Houli Chemlal and Driss Oukabir, were sentenced to an upwards of 53 and 46 years in prison respectively, the third, Said Ben Iazza, to 8 years in prison for the crime of collaboration. They were also banned from approaching the town of Alcanar, where they prepared the attacks.[182][183]
In January 2022, former police commissionerJosé Manuel Villarejo, appeared to suggest that the Spanish authorities knew of Younes Abouyaaquob's plans ahead of time and used it to hamstring the Catalonian Independence movement, prompting Catalan presidentPere Aragonès to call for an investigation.[12] Many have dismissed the allegations as a conspiracy theory.[12][184][13]
In 2020, Catalan journalist Anna Teixidor published a book about the attacks titledSense por de morir: Els silencis del 17-A. The book was published in Spanish and Catalan.[185]
A three-part docuseries800 Meters about the attacks and the police investigation was released on Netflix on 25 March 2022. The series was directed byElías León.[186]
^"The Las Ramblas suspect's family: "Until last year, Younes was completely normal"".Público (in Spanish). Retrieved26 August 2017.Abouyaaqoub's brother El Houssaine and his first cousins, brothers Mohamed and Omar Hychami, are three of the five men shot dead by police in a similar attack that took place on Friday morning in the Catalan municipality of Cambrils
^FERNANDO J. PÉREZ (1 September 2017)."Driss Oukabir confessed that his brother Moussa told him that he had to do the jihad".El País (in Spanish). Retrieved2 September 2017.Driss Oukabir admitted to the judge that his brother, 17, had increased the frequency of his prayers and blamed him for spending time with non-muslims. In addition, the minor took precautions to camouflage his radicalization from the security forces, according to the magistrate. Moussa avoided going to the first prayer of the morning, on suspicion that the security forces had that prayer under surveillance in the mosque of Ripoll. The detainee, who rented the Fiat Talento with which Youness Abouyaaqoub ran over La Rambla de Barcelona on the afternoon of 17 August, acknowledged before the judge that his younger brother had told him that Muslims had to do "the jihad that implies war.
^MANUEL MARRACO (1 September 2017)."Driss Oukabir admits before the judge that his brother Moussa wanted to do "the jihad that implies war"".El Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved2 September 2017.He [Moussa] would have suffered a religious exacerbation, reflected both in his way of dressing and wearing his hair, as well as in his religious habits. He adds that in his judicial declaration, Oukabir acknowledged that his brother had increased his prayers, reproached him for not spending time with muslims only and intended to hide his radicalization from possible police investigators, avoiding attending the first prayer of the day, in the face of suspicions that the police monitored that first prayer. Driss Oukabir also acknowledged before the judge that his brother had told him that Muslims had to do jihad, "the jihad that implies war".
^"The attacks in Catalonia, a week later".La Vanguardia (in Spanish). Retrieved24 August 2017.The jihadist cell was formed by at least a dozen terrorists, all born in Morocco
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