Terror attack update: yen bid, driver still at large, arrests and suspects shot dead
|Latest breaking news: Four suspected terrorists have been shot dead.
It all started at about 4.30 in the afternoon along Las Ramblas that the incident at first was reported to be a huge car crash. However, it was then confirmed shortly afterward by police that this was indeed yet another terror attack carried out in a hired van weaponized into a killing machine; (Sweeden, London, Berlin, and Nice were the previous locations of fatalities due to terror plots carried out by terrorists driving vans).
13 people have been reported killed and at least 100 injured by Spanish police after the van deliberately zig-zagged several hundred meters through Las Ramblas purposely targeting tourists on one of Europes most populated tourist areas.
Armed police were quickly deployed to the scene but the perpetrators were on the run. Two men were subsequently arrested according to Spanish police. The arrests were made in northern Catalan where a suspected bomb plot had been interrupted where a man was blown up. However, neither of these suspects was the driver of the vehicle the police said who escaped on foot and remained at large on Thursday night. It was also reported that a man was shot dead after a police officer was run over, but this was not supposedly linked to the terror incident.
One of the men arrested, Driss Oukabar, is a Moroccan man whose identification documents had been used to rent the van. Islamic extremists were reported to be gloating over the killings. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the assault.
There is a lot that we still don't know, but the latest information is the police operation that took place just an hour south of Barcelona in Cambrils, where armed police apprehended and shot dead several suspected terrorists that we are told by authorities were planning another terrorist attack.
Currently, USD/JPY is trading at 109.39, down -0.16% on the day, having posted a daily high at 109.59 and low at 109.29.
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