Spain attacks: Police hunt Barcelona driver, probe suspected bomb factory

Alcanar, Spain (CNN)An international manhunt was underway Saturday for the driver of a van that killed 13 people in Barcelona as police probed the wreckage of a suspected bomb factory for clues to the cell behind this week's two terror attacks in Spain.

The flattened ruins of a house in the village of Alcanar have become the center of a massive police investigation into the terror cell suspected of using the house to make bombs.

When an explosion destroyed the house Wednesday night, killing one person and seriously injuring another, it set in train a series of events culminating in the deaths in Barcelona and one more in a second attack in the town of Cambrils.

A manhunt has been ongoing since a van plowed into pedestrians Thursday afternoon on Las Ramblas in the heart of Barcelona, killing 13 and injuring 120.

Early Friday, a group of five attackers wearing fake suicide belts drove into pedestrians in Cambrils, killing one and injuring six. Police shot all five assailants dead but said late Friday it was "increasingly unlikely" that the Barcelona driver was among them, Reuters reported.

A Catalan police spokesman on Saturday confirmed the names of three of the five suspects killed in Cambrils as Moussa Oukabir, Said Aallaa and Mohamed Hychami.

He also said that Younes Abouyaaqoub, who's wanted in connection with the Barcelona attack, remains on the run. Spanish media report that Abouyaaqoub is a 22-year-old Moroccan national.

Police released images of four suspects. Three are dead, but Younes Abouyaaqoub remains on the run.

Authorities said the terror cell involved in the attacks -- believed to number about 12 members --has been "completely dismantled," Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoida said Saturday.

Eight of the 12 lived in Ripoll, a city north of Barcelona. Three were arrested, one is unaccounted for, and another is one of the dead suspects, Oukabir. Another arrest was made in the village of Alcanar.

CNN reporters went to Oukabir's apartment in Ripoll. A neighbor, Raimon Garcia, said Oukabir was one of four siblings -- two brothers and two sisters.

Oukabir's brother, Driss, was among those arrested. He turned himself into police when his identification was found in the Barcelona van, telling authorities he wasn't involved in the attack.

A man who claimed to be a cousin of the brothers said Moussa Oukabir was "brainwashed."

A woman who lives next to a mosque in the neighborhood told CNN that she had witnessed the Oukabir brothers attending the place of worship "every day for many years."

Bulldozer clears rubble in Alcanar

The debris of a house in the village of Alcanar may hold clues about the terror cell's plans.

The ruins of the house in Alcanar, a quiet beach town about 125 miles (201 kilometers) south of Barcelona, may hold the key to unraveling the plans and methods of the terror cell.

Police suspect the property was being used as a base to make explosives that could have caused even more devastating attacks in Barcelona, Cambrils and possibly elsewhere had they not blown up prematurely.

Explosives experts brought in a bulldozer Saturday to clear rubble before conducting a number of controlled explosions at the site in Alcanar's Montecarlo area

News Courtesy: www.cnn.com