Unmasking Hezbollah - Drug trafficking and terror (1/3) |

In 2008, the United States launched "Project Cassandra". The aim was to uncover how Hezbollah uses drug trafficking and money laundering to finance its military and terrorist activities. The three-part series tells the story of the project. By 2008, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had gathered sufficient evidence to show that Hezbollah had transformed from a military and political organization into an international crime syndicate. They were making billions from drug and arms trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities. "Project Cassandra" was the ambitious, top-secret project designed to stop them.

ISIS-K Moscow attacks – who is at risk?

Islamic State, a group that once sought control over parts of Iraq and Syria, has claimed responsibility for Friday's mass shooting at a concert hall near Moscow that killed at least 139 people. U.S. officials have said they have intelligence indicating it was the Afghan branch, Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), that was responsible. The Islamic State once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Can Mali win its battle for stability?

UN speeds up the withdrawal of its peacekeepers from Mali as new conflict breaks out.

The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali says the deteriorating security situation is forcing it to speed up its withdrawal from the country.

A week ago, six UN troops and dozens of fighters from an armed group were killed in confrontations near the northern city of Ber. The UN is already in the process of wrapping up its operations.

Inside the Empire of Terror

 

Between January 7 and 9, 2015, France experienced horror. Behind the shock, questions. Does France have the financial means to fight, whether to protect us with Vigipirate, or to monitor and track on our territory? And it has considerable financial means. How is this organization funded? How did it manage to multiply its sources of profit? How does his marketing allow him to constantly recruit new fighters in the West?

The crisis in Mali

 

Northern Mali fell into the hands of armed jihadists in 2012. This resulted in the launch of the French-led "Operation Serval," designed to liberate the occupied territory. But the crisis only worsened.

Bataclan: Verdicts handed down in 2015 Paris attacks trial

 

A French court in Paris has handed down a guilty verdict against the sole surviving perpetrator of the deadliest Islamist terror attacks in the history of France.

Afghanistan: Pakistan intelligence chief arrives in Kabul, as fighting continues in Panjshir Valley

 

Just remember that the Taliban didn't emerge organically from Kandahar. It was an astroturfed by Pakistans ISI. Which armed, trained, gave money and provided intelligence to the group.  Towards the end of the Clinton administration they came close to designating the ISI as terrorist organization because of their continued support of the Taliban and other terrorist groups operating inside Afghanistan. 

The fightback begins: Resistance to Taliban starts but chance of success is low

 

The National Resistance Front for Afghanistan has said it is prepared to fight on, reports Kim Sengupta in Kabul

Ahmad Massoud, sitting under a photograph of his father Ahmad Shah Massoud, the renowned mujahideen leader, and Amrullah Saleh, vice-president of the recently defeated Afghan government, have declared an armed resistance has begun against the Taliban.

General Bismillah Khan Mohammedi, the former defence minister, is another commander in the fightback against the Islamists and Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord, may, it is claimed, also join.

Whether the National Resistance Front for Afghanistan, based in the Panjshir Valley, the traditional stronghold of the Northern Alliance, and the last area unconquered by the Taliban, turns into a viable force remains to be seen.

Two of the three people mentioned in the article have previously been accused of human rights violations following the Talibans last attempt at governing Afghanistan  

Who's behind Islamist terrorism?

 

Who’s financing, planning and commissioning terror attacks in Europe? This investigative documentary follows a trail that leads to Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, which seems not only to fight terror, but sponsor it as well.

Terrorism Expert Fears Extremist Threat To Government Officials Could Remain | MSNBC

 

How a Trump-supporting mob could breach the Capitol is analyzed by MSNBC Analyst Malcolm Nance, who tells Tiffany Cross that the threat of extremists to government officials could remain.

Michigan militia plot: ‘Plan A’ involved takeover of Capitol, followed by televised executions

 David Neiwert

Daily Kos

The militiamen who plotted to kidnap and execute Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer saw their operation mainly as a backup plan for a much more ambitious “Plan A,” prosecutors say. The plan was to assemble 200 armed “Patriots” who would take over the state Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, and then hold televised executions of the state officials they took hostage.

According to a document filed by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office this week in response to an attempt by attorneys for one of the men to drastically reduce his bond, the militiamen devised the Capitol takeover plan alongside their schemes to abduct Whitmer from her summer home. At the end, they intended either to kill everyone inside the building or to simply set it aflame with everyone locked inside.

Members of the Wolverine Watchmen, as the plotters called themselves, conducted paramilitary training sessions to prepare for the dual attacks. Many of them had participated in a number of anti-Whitmer protests, calling her a “tyrant” for her COVID-19 pandemic public health measures such as business and school closures. These were protests at which violent rhetoric threatening Whitmer and other officials became common.

During one of the protests on April 30, armed men had attempted to invade the floor of the state House but were prevented from doing so by state police. The militiamen began scheming, thinking of ways to successfully overtake the Capitol building around that time.

The group had organized on social media, primarily Facebook, for their initial recruitment. “Wolverine Watchmen is a group of Patriots to network and assemble and recruit like minded individuals,” the statement on their private Facebook page read. “Develop regional QRFs and squad tactics. Only add people you trust no statist, no fudds, no bootlickers and no cops or feds. If you're serious get a wire and message an admin your username.”  

The group’s rules included references to the “Boogaloo,” the civil war movement to which the participants all subscribed. One such rule limited membership: “Boojahidden only, No feds, statist, cops, bootlickers or commies or ethnonationalist.”

A June 14 paramilitary training session at a property in Munith, Michigan, followed a schedule written out by plotters Pete Musico and Joe Morrison, including “ambush tactics,” “driver down situation,” and “taking a (possible) hostile vehicle over.” It also included medical training sessions.

“Plan A consisted of recruiting 200 men and then storm the Capitol building in Lansing while Congress was in session,” the prosecutors’ document said. “They were to take hostages, execute tyrants and have it televised. It would take about one week and that no one is coming out alive.

“The secondary plan was to storm the Capitol building in Lansing when Congress was in session. They would then lock the entrances/exits to the structure. They would then set the building on fire.”

According to prosecutors, the kidnapping plot arose only after members began to have doubts about the logistical issues regarding their initial plan to invade the Capitol. Musico believed the target was “a fishbowl,” and offered up his own “Plan B”—namely, to target politicians in their homes. After a June 28 discussion, the group of plotters began focusing their efforts on following that strategy, with Whitmer as the target.

The document included other revealing details about the plot, focusing primarily on Musico, whose attorneys were attempting to reduce his bond—which a judge had already lowered from $10 million to $100,000—to a mere $20,000:

• At one time, Musico claimed he had thrown a Molotov cocktail into a police officer’s home. “He stated he waited outside the back door of the house and planned to shoot the officer when he came out, but ultimately decided not to,” prosecutors state. according to the document.
• Musico also claimed that during the April 30 near-takeover event at the Capitol, he had attempted to get a Michigan State Police trooper to touch him at a rally at the Michigan State Capitol in 2020.
• The men also not only discussed targeting law enforcement officers at their home, they undertook tactical paramilitary training designed to confront police. “Put your vest on, gear up and hunt the rich,” Musico said, according to the document.

“Pete Musico, during a meeting, addressed the group and gave them an ultimatum: the group was heading toward ‘real shit’ action which required dedication to the group and cause,” the prosecutors stated.

“If they had been training to improve their tactical skills, that was OK, but they needed to leave immediately if they didn’t want to be part of what was coming. No one in the group left. … Musico also advised an individual that he was preparing to produce more pounds of C-4 explosives in anticipation of planned events.”

One of the plotters—Brian Higgins, 52, of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin—has also been fighting the charges in court. Higgins’ attorney is fighting his extradition to Michigan because Whitmer—the target of the kidnapping plot—signed the paperwork ordering him brought to the state.

In a court filing in advance of Wednesday's  status conference in Columbia County Circuit Court in Wisconsin, Higgins’ attorney, Christopher Van Wagner, wrote: “To put it more bluntly, the requisition was signed in an official capacity by someone with a clear, undeniable conflict of interest in the case against Higgins: the Michigan (governor), who as the named alleged victim has a direct and utterly undeniable personal interest in this matter.”

Higgins is accused of participating in the Wolverine Watchmen’s September field training exercise and discussing the plot with other members. He also accompanied the men in their surveillance of Whitmer's private vacation house near Traverse City, a police affidavit filed in the case claims.

"In particular, Brian Higgins, while on a nighttime surveillance of the Governor's home, provided the use of his night-vision goggles for the surveillance," the affidavit reads. "Additionally, he used a mounted digital dash camera located in his vehicle to record the surveillance of the Governor's home in order to aid in kidnapping plans."

On Thursday, the Wisconsin judge overseeing Higgins’ case continued the extradition hearing to mid-December, but denied him release on bail.

America’s largest militia says it will refuse to recognise Biden as president and ‘resist’ his administration

 In the early 90's in America small groups began forming, what they called militias as a bulwark against what they believed was government overreach through laws and regulations. Some were Neo-Nazi's other's white nationalists and still others believed they were helping to stop America from being taken over by those who attacked American values because they believed in inclusion or by immigrants.  Even though these groups use the word militia to define who and what they represent they aren't. As the constitution in the 2nd amendment the word militia is used in conjunction with well regulated. Meaning that a militia would be part of the government's defense structure. You know, an army. Militia groups today while using that term are not, not have they ever mean part of the countries national defense infrastructure.  Outside of America they would be classified as what they are terrorists and treated as such. Yet the English speaking media refers to these terrorists as militias as if they have some romantic notion of the past before there was a standing army.  

‘Anything he signs into law we won’t recognise as legitimate,’ Oath Keepers founder says

The largest militia group in the US will refuse to recognise President-elect Joe Biden as the nation’s duly elected leader when he is sworn in on 20 January 2021.

The Oath Keepers, an armed right-wing organisation that boasts tens of thousands of members with law enforcement and military backgrounds, was one of several groups to demonstrate in Washington over the weekend at the “Million MAGA March” in support of Donald Trump, whom news networks project has lost the 2020 election.

“I think about half this country won’t recognise Biden as legitimate. They won’t recognise this election,” Stewart Rhodes, who founded the Oath Keepers, told The Independent on Saturday in the nation’s capital.

Donald Trump has embolden these groups through his long standing attacks on the legitimacy of American's electoral process going back to the 2016 election, where despite losing the popular vote he won enough electoral  college votes to win that election. It wasn't enough for him. staring about a year and half ago he began the process again. Following his defeat on 3 November he only amped up his attacks. Encouraging his supporters to question the legitimacy  of Joe Biden's win. In doing so he's set the stage for these groups to commit acts of violence against a government and a state they now view as legitimate.    

IS targets the Philippines | DW Documentary

Is the so-called "Islamic State" aiming to use the Philippines as its bridgehead in Asia? IS took control of the predominantly Muslim city of Marawi in 2017, and it took the Philippine army five months to take it back. We report from a country that the so-called "Islamic State" apparently wants to use as a bridgehead to spread its ideology in Asia. Marawi's total destruction made the Philippine state look weak and incapable of defending its own territory.

White Nationalism, Born In The USA, Is Now A Global Terror Threat

Despite President Donald Trump’s suggestion that white nationalist terrorism is not a major problem, recent data from the United Nations, University of Chicago and other sources show the opposite.

By The Conversation

Art Jipson, University of Dayton and Paul J. Becker, University of Dayton

The recent massacre of 50 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand is the latest confirmation that white supremacy is a danger to democratic societies across the globe.

Despite President Donald Trump’s suggestion that white nationalist terrorism is not a major problem, recent data from the United Nations, University of Chicago and other sources show the opposite.

As more people embrace a xenophobic and anti-immigrant worldview, it is fueling hostility and violence toward those deemed “outsiders” – whether because of their religion, skin color or national origin.

Transnational violence

Most of the Western world – from Switzerland and Germany to the United States, Scandinavia and New Zealand – has witnessed a potent nationalist strain infecting society in recent years.

Driven by fear over the loss of white primacy, white nationalists believe that white identity should be the organizing principle of Western society.

“Every people in the world can have their own country except white people,” the American Freedom Party’s William Daniel Johnson told the Chicago Sun Times after the New Zealand attack. “We should have white ethno-states.”

In researching our upcoming book on extremism – our joint area of academic expertise – we found that hate crimes have risen alongside the global spread of white nationalism. Racist attacks on refugees, immigrants, Muslims and Jews are increasing worldwide at an alarming rate.

Scholars studying the internationalization of hate crimes call this dangerous phenomenon “violent transnationalism.”

In Europe, white violence appears to have been triggered by the sudden increase, in 2015, of refugees fleeing war in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ultra-nationalists across the continent – including politicians at the highest rungs of power – used the influx as evidence of the imminent “cultural genocide” of white people.

White nationalism is a US export

This disturbing international trend, in its modern incarnation, was born in the United States.

Since the 1970s, a small, vocal cadre of American white supremacists have sought to export their ideology of hate. Avowed racists like Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke, Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler and extremist author William Pierce believe the white race is under attack worldwide by a cultural invasion of immigrants and people of color.

The United States is diversifying, but it remains 77 percent white. White supremacists, however, have long contended that the country’s demographic changes will lead to an extermination of the white race and culture.

The “alt-right” – an umbrella term describing modern online white supremacist movement – uses the same language. And it has expanded this 20th-century xenophobic worldview to portray refugees, Muslims and progressives as a threat, too.

Alt-right leaders like Richard Spencer, extremist Jared Taylor and the Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer editor Andrew Anglin also use social media to share their ideology and recruit members across borders.

They have found a global audience of white supremacists who, in turn, have also used the internet to share their ideas, encourage violence and broadcast their hate crimes worldwide.

“The hatred that led to violence in Pittsburgh and Charlottesville is finding new adherents around the world,” Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, a civil liberties watchdog, told USA Today after the New Zealand attack.

“Indeed, it appears that this attack was not just focused on New Zealand; it was intended to have a global impact.”

Rising racist violence

We know the alleged New Zealand mosque shooter’s hatred of Muslims was inspired by American white nationalism – he said so on Twitter.

His online “manifesto” includes references to cultural conflicts that the author believed would eventually lead the United States to separate along ethnic, political and racial lines.

The alleged attacker also wrote that he supports President Donald Trump “as a symbol of renewed white identity.”

Trump and other right-wing politicians like French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and Dutch opposition leader Geert Wilders have blamed the very real problems of modern life – growing economic instability, rising inequality and industrial decay – on immigrants and people of color.

That narrative has added further hostility into the existing undercurrent of intolerance in increasingly multicultural societies like the United States.

Hate crimes against Muslims, immigrants and people of color have been on the rise in the U.S. since 2014.

In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center documented 892 hate crimes. The next year, it counted 917 hate crimes. In 2017 – the year Trump took office stoking nationalist sentiment with promises to build walls, deport Mexicans and ban Muslims – the U.S. saw 954 white supremacist attacks.

One of them was a violent clash between counterprotesters and white nationalists over the removal of a confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. The 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, which killed one person and injured dozens, amplified the ideas of modern white nationalists nationally and worldwide.

Last year, white nationalists killed at least 50 people in the United States. Their victims included 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, two elderly black shoppers in a Kroger parking lot in Kentucky and two women practicing yoga in Florida.

The years 2015, 2016 and 2018 were the United States’ deadliest years for extremist violence since 1970, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

All perpetrators of deadly extremist violence in the U.S. in 2018 had links to white nationalist groups. That made 2018 “a particularly active year for right-wing extremist murders,” the Anti-Defamation League says.

Nationalist terror is a danger to the domestic security of the United States and, evidence shows, a global terror threat that endangers the very nature of global democratic society.

Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton and Paul J. Becker, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Al Jazeera's Mehdi Hasan Blasts The Media For Lopsided Coverage Of Islamic Terrorism (video)

Al Jazeera English UpFront host Mehdi Hasan with a quote from a viral tweet on the disparity in the way the media covers terrorism: It's "one of the only areas where white people do most of the work and get none of the credit."

By Heather

Hasan was rightfully lauded as an example for western journalists, who, far too often, give those in positions of power like Prince a pass, rather than doing their homework and asking tough follow up questions as we saw Hasan do during the Prince interview.

MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid brought Hasan on to discuss the recent massacre in New Zealand this Sunday and the current political climate which is tragically being fostered by “the world's most prominent Islamaphobe” Donald Trump.

HASAN: There's Islamophobia there. There is white privilege there. Yes, ISIS killers don't get to be angelic boys, even though we assume some of them may have been angelic boys before they became killers. There is always this case of the white mass shooter, was always, was he mentally ill, deranged, loner, lone wolf? The Muslim killer is always a terrorist. I would say, if you believe the view of Muslims presented by some in the media, we are immune to mental illness. It's kind of cool. Inbuilt immunity. We can't be mentally ill, just the kind of ideologues.

But if you look at the coverage Joy, the coverage of the word terrorism is not used for people who are not Muslim, and that's the problem. We have been conditioned to believe that a terrorist attack is only an attack carried out by a brown dude with a beard shouting something in Arabic.

Of course, statistics show otherwise. The ADL says three-quarters of terrorist deaths in the United States over the past decade were carried out by far right domestic white nationalist terrorists, a quarter by Muslims.

Can we say that the media coverage of terrorism in this country is 75 percent white nationalists, 25 percent Islamic terrorists? In face, Georgia State University did a study. They found that a Muslim terrorist gets four and a half times as much coverage of his crimes as a non-Muslim terrorist. Four and a half times.

REID: Right. Well think about the killer in Las Vegas who gunned down hundreds of people.

HASAN: It's hard to even remember him. He's gone.

REID: No one talks about him.

HASAN: Here's a statistic for you. The Georgia State guys found that a non-Muslim terrorist has to kill, on average, seven people more than a Muslim terrorist to get equal coverage, as a Muslim terrorist. That's a hashtag media fail. And I'm always reminded of that old viral tweet that terrorism is one of the only areas where white people do most of the work and get none of the credit.

It's a problem. You know, and it leads to racism, Islamophobia. It leads to fear on the part of communities of immigrants, you know, that's where the terrorism threat is from brown people, from foreign people, not from the terrorism threat in our midst. Even when you have Dylann Roof shoot nine people, kill nine black people in a church.

REID: And then get a nice meal of burgers and fries.

HASAN: Yes, and doesn't get charged with a terrorism, doesn't get called a terrorist. Alex Fields killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, doesn't get called get doesn't get called a terrorist, doesn't get charged with terrorism. Robert Bowers who killed eleven Jewish worshipers in a synagogue last year, doesn't get charged with terrorism... shooter, “shooter” is the word used in the headline, not terrorist. And look, I have a problem with the whole war on terror discourse to begin with, but let's be consistent.

Order A Journalist Killed: Receive A Public Holiday And A Gold Platted Machine Gun

Even though irrefutable evidence exists showing  Mohammad bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi that hasn't stopped the government of Pakistan from declaring a public holiday, having him personally driven about in the Prime Minister's Official vehicle, but perhaps most appropriate was given a gold platted machine gun.  Nothing says free speech, free press and supporting human rights than a gift of a gold platted machine gun to the person who ordered Jamal Khashoggi's murder. But, hey. It's Pakistan the country that helped found and train the Taliban.  Along with providing support to know terrorist groups operating in India controlled Kashmir. Both these countries are considered important allies by the Trump administration. Why not?  Governments and their leaders who show and or support authoritarian rule are greatly admired by Donald Trump.

Mohammad bin Salman has been welcomed with a fighter jet escort, a gold-plated submachine gun and Pakistan’s highest civilian honour on the lavish first leg of an Asian tour aimed at rehabilitating the image of the Saudi Arabian crown prince five months after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

After being personally chauffeured from the airport by the country’s prime minister, Imran Khan, Prince Mohammed signed agreements worth $20bn on Monday, a crucial injection of funds for an ailing economy suffering a foreign-currency crunch and which is currently negotiating its 13th IMF bailout in 40 years.

The day was declared a public holiday in Pakistan, and pictures of the powerful royal dotted the capital Islamabad. In celebration, the Saudis announced the release of more than 2,000 Pakistani prisoners from their jails.

How Islamist militant groups are gaining strength in Africa

Islamist terrorist groups have found a new home and it's not in the Middle East -- it's in Africa. Specifically, the Sahel, a band of territory in West Africa between the Sahara desert and the savannah. Since the early 2000s, Islamist extremist groups have increasingly strengthened their base here -- training fighters, raising money, and launching a massive number of attacks. Some are linked to al-Qaeda and other Islamic State. This is throwing these already weak countries into crises and making the region one of the most dangerous in the world.

How the NY Times & U.S. Government Worked Together to Suppress James Risen’s Post-9/11 Reporting

Trump just put North Korea back on the state sponsor of terrorism list

Donald Trump announced that he'll return North Korea to the terrorist sponsorship list joining countries like Sudan and Iran.   North Korea was first placed on the watch list in 1988 following the bombing of a Korean Air 747.  The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in 2008 in an effort to further negotiations on reducing North Korea's nuclear weapons program.  His argument for doing this involves the killing of  Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia. 

 Administration officials also discussed the possibility of calling the brutal death of Otto Warmbier — the 23-year-old US citizen released by North Korea this summer who returned home in a coma — an act of terrorism. However, there was no agreement as to whether or not his death, as horrible as it was, constituted terrorism, the Washington Post reports.

North Korea was on the state sponsor of terror list before. President George W. Bush included the country in his 2002 “Axis of Evil” speech along with Iran and Iraq. But he removed Pyongyang as part of talks designed to get the country to stop its nuclear program. Clearly, that plan didn’t work — North Korea tested a missile capable of hitting most of the US on July 28 — and Trump is, in a way, going back in time.

Kim Jong-un believes that having such weapons will prevent regime change by any means.   

It's not like earlier sanctions from the United Nations, Japan or the U.S. has slowed North Korea's nuclear weapons development which has continued apace.  

Spanish police 'stop second attack'

Spanish police say they have killed several people in Cambrils to stop what they say was a second attempted attack after a car attack in Barcelona.

Police warned people to stay off the streets, with shots reported in the port of Cambrils.

Thirteen people died and dozens were injured when a van ploughed into crowds in Barcelona's Las Ramblas area on Thursday afternoon.

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said it was a "jihadist attack".

Las Ramblas van driver remains at large

The hunt continues for the driver of the van who killed 13 people in Las Ramblas and injured 100 more.

The Catalan interior minister, Joaquim Forn, said on Friday morning that the Barcelonaattacker remains at large.

Police shot dead five other suspects in Cambrils after a second terror attack in the early hours of Friday morning. Authorities say the two attacks are linked.

Forn told local radio RAC1 early Friday:

[It] follows the same trail. There is a connection.

Both are also being linked to an explosion in Alcanar, around 200km from Barcelona and 90km from Cambrils, which destroyed a house, killing one person. Police say the property was being used to prepare explosives.

What we know about those killed and injured

Barcelona

• 13 people are confirmed to have died after a van was driven into pedestrians in Las Ramblas.
• Around 100 people were injured, at least 15 of them seriously.
• Two men have been arrested – including Driss Oukabir, who was initially suspected of being the driver – but police have now said neither man was behind the wheel. They remain in custody.
• Police are still searching for the driver.

Cambrils

• Six bystanders were wounded, one critically and another seriously, in a second terror attack in which a vehicle was driven at pedestrians in an echo of the Barcelona attack.
• Police shot dead four suspects in the coastal town, around 120kms from Barcelona. A fifth, who was injured and arrested, has since died. Some were wearing what appeared to be explosive belts.
• A police officer was also slightly injured in the counter-terror operation.

Alcanar

• Before the attack in Las Ramblas, one person was killed and at least one other wounded in an explosion that destroyed a house in Alcanar, around 200km from Barcelona and 90km from Cambrils.
• The cause was initially thought to be a gas leak but police now say they are linking it to the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils.