Spanish police launch nationwide MANHUNT for driver of van used in Barcelona attack

Younes Abouyaaqoub is said to be at the centre of the investigation into the massacre on Las Ramblas that left 13 dead and at nearly 130 injured.

According to Spanish newspaper El Pais, police in Catalonia said they were searching for the man, who is understood to be a key member of a jihadist cell.

The terror cell reportedly had 12 members and had plotted a series of attacks in Spain.

On Friday it emerged that another suspect Moussa Oukabir, who is thought to have rented the van, was among five men shot dead as they launched a second attack in the coastal town of Cambrils.

The teenager, said to be 17 or 18 years old, is suspected of using his brother’s documents to hire the vehicle that ploughed through pedestrians in the tourist hotspot on Thursday evening.

He reportedly died along with Said Aallaa, 19, and Mohamed Hychami, 24, who were part of a group that mounted a similar attack in Cambrils that left one woman dead and six people injured.

The identities of the other two dead jihadists are yet to be confirmed by police.

Three of the terrorists are Moroccan and one Spanish, and police said none of them had been on a security services watchlist for terror-related reasons.

Moussa Oukabir’s older brother, Driss Oukabir, is reported to be one of those detained.

Catalan police believe the men who carried out attacks had been planning a bomb attack but were forced to change their plan when the device exploded during assembly.

Police believe the suspected jihadist cell suffered a setback on Wednesday night when their bomb-making materials blew up prematurely in a house in the Catalan town of Alcanar. 

They then decided to carry out “more rudimentary” attacks, using two vehicles inspired by the attacks seen in Nice, Berlin, London and elsewhere, said Josep Lluís Trapero, head of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan regional police.

He added: “We are working on the theory that this attack or series of attacks was being planned for some time from this house in Alcanar.

“The explosion in Alcanar deprived them of the explosives they needed, so they carried out these more rudimentary attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils that were similar to the other attacks.”