Yahoo – AFP,
Alfons LUNA, August 19, 2017
Ripoll (Spain) (AFP) - In the Spanish border town of Ripoll, everyone knows each other -- making it all the more shocking to residents that jihadists believed responsible for this week's deadly twin attacks lived among them.
 |
| Catalan police officers detain a handcuffed suspect in Ripoll during a search linked to the deadly terror attacks in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils (AFP Photo/PAU BARRENA) |
Ripoll (Spain) (AFP) - In the Spanish border town of Ripoll, everyone knows each other -- making it all the more shocking to residents that jihadists believed responsible for this week's deadly twin attacks lived among them.
"You
are neighbours your entire life and they end up doing this," said Maria, a
waitress in the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, who declined to give her
full name.
The attackers
killed 14 people and left 120 others wounded, using vehicles to mow down
pedestrians in Barcelona on Thursday and in the nearby Catalan seaside resort
of Cambrils early Friday.
At least
seven of the 12 suspects grew up or lived in Ripoll.
Most were
children of Moroccan immigrants, including Ripoll-born Moussa Oukabir, 17, one
of five "suspected terrorists" shot dead after the Cambrils attack.
Likewise,
his neighbour Mohamed Hychami, 24, and 18-year-old Said Aallaa, who were also
in the car turned into a deadly weapon, called Ripoll home.
At least
three of four other suspects detained were also inhabitants of the little town
that attracts skiers en route to the Pyrenees mountains bordering France.
And on
Saturday, officers raided the apartment of an imam in Ripoll, Abdelbaki Es
Satty, according to his flatmate who gave his name only as Nourddem.
"The
last time I saw him was Tuesday and he told me that he was going to see his
wife in Morocco," Nourddem told AFP.
But Spanish
daily El Pais, quoting police sources, said the imam may have been one of those
killed in an explosion in a house in Alcanar, some 200 kilometres south of
Barcelona, where the alleged jihadists were believed to have been building
bombs.
'They
came in for a beer'
Everywhere
across town, the dismay that one of their own had carried out the deadliest
attack in Spain since 2004 was palpable.
Stunned
locals looked on as heavily armed officers raided several homes on Friday,
including one next to the central Plaza Grande square filled with cafe
terraces.
A waiter at
one of the cafes told AFP he had served beers to the suspects numerous times,
most recently just two days ago.
"They
came to have beer at another bar in the square where I used to work. Two days
ago they came, two of them and a child. They had a Heineken, a cafe au lait and
the child had a juice," said the waiter, who declined to give his name.
 |
A Catalan
police officer holds a bag in Ripoll after carrying out a search linked
to
Spain's deadly terror attacks (AFP Photo/PAU BARRENA)
|
The
suspects behaved normally, and gave no reason to be watchful of them, he added.
"Of
course it is surprising," a customer of one of the bars, Alberto Batlle,
told AFP of the attacks.
"You
usually see these things on television happening in other countries and you
always believe it will continue to happen to others. And it really affects you,
when it happens in Barcelona and it is the work of people from Ripoll."
Yasmila,
the neighbour of one of the alleged jihadists, also said that the suspect Said
Aallaa was a hardworking and good youth.
"A
friend apparently called him on Thursday at 3pm and he went out for a
drive," she said, recalling the event two hours before the Barcelona
attack.
Signs of
radicalisation?
But other
locals say there had been visible signs that some in the local Muslim community
may have become more radicalised, with some becoming less social.
The opening
of a mosque in 2008 prompted controversy in a town that is home to a monastery
dating back to the year 888, according to media reports, while more recently a
local newspaper column had urged authorities to "check the speech of some
imams who were preaching during Ramadan".
Ripoll
Mayor Jordi Munell angrily rejected this, saying that if someone saw something
suspect, they must tell authorities.
"Today,
for example, a person told me that one of (the suspects) had written a radical
message on social media. That's true, four years ago! And never again," he
said.
"When
it's happened, it's very easy to say 'I knew it'."
That's
exactly what a man of around 60 said.
"Those
who know these north Africans are not surprised," he told AFP.
"You
can't say that, they're not all the same," was the retort of a woman who lived
next door to Moussa Oukabir.
She added
that Moussa's older brother, Driss -- arrested on Thursday -- was a "very
well-raised boy".
He told
officers that his identity papers, which had been used to rent the van that
ploughed into pedestrians in Barcelona, had been stolen by Moussa, according to
police sources.
La comunitat islàmica es manifesta a #Ripoll pic.twitter.com/kujb8IDsOE— Corisa (@CorisaMediaGrup) August 19, 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.