Police in Spain say they have shot and killed several people south of Barcelona while carrying out an operation in response to an earlier terrorist attack in Barcelona.

The regional police for the Catalonia region said on Twitter on Friday that officers were in Cambrils, a seaside resort town about 100 kilometres from Barcelona.

They called on people in the town not to go out on the streets.

A Catalan police spokeswoman says police have killed four attackers in Cambrils and another is seriously injured following an operating against what authorities called a terrorist attack.

Spanish media Cadena Ser reported that a group of people attempted to drive a van onto a pedestrian area in the town but the van overturned and its occupants were shot by police.

They said another attacker may still be alive and they were reportedly wearing explosive belts.

It comes after police arrested a suspect who allegedly rented a getaway van to carry out the Barcelona terror attack.

Footage showed a man being detained by armed officers shortly after the attack which left at least 13 people dead and more than 100 others injured.

Spanish police said one of the vans used in the attack was rented by a Moroccan man 15 miles from where the atrocity was committed.

Moussa Oukabir, 18, who lives in Barcelona, has been named as a suspect after reportedly stealing his older brother's ID documents, according to El Pais.

Earlier, officers named his brother Driss Oukabir, a Catalan resident in his late 20s and of Moroccan origin, as being the man to have rented the vehicle, the Daily Mail reports.

But reports in Spain say he handed himself in at a police station in Ripoll, 65 miles north of Barcelona.

 

 

Television network TVE1 said Oukabir told police his documents had been stolen by his brother and police are investigating whether he played any role in the attacks.

Investigations suggested Oukabir rented the van in the town of Santa Perpètua de Mogoda.

The Mossos d'Esquadra said that two people have been arrested following the attack.

The force tweeted: "Police presence for the incident in Barcelona continues. We confirm two arrests."

Oukabir was born in Morocco in 1989, police sources have told OkDiaro in Spain.

But a Facebook page with Oukabir's name - which has since been deleted - identifies him as being from Marseille and living in Ripoll in Catalonia.

His wall has been flooded with angry messages following the attack. On Tuesday he uploaded a picture of himself relaxing on a beach, although the location is not immediately clear.

Barcelona's Tv3 reports that the Spanish passport of a person of Moroccan origin was found at the scene of the attack.

Television footage showed hundreds of people fleeing the Plaza de Catalunya in panic, while others treated bloodied injured on the ground along Las Ramblas.

The Mossos d'Esquadra tweeted: "Confirmed terrorist attack. Terrorism protocol has been activated."

Pictures and video emerging from the scene show armed police and paramedics rushing to the Las Ramblas, a busy tree-lined promenade in the centre of the city.

Horrifying footage from the scene shows dozens of victims lying injured on the floor.

Gunfire was heard at the Corte Ingles store in the area after police announced a "massive crash".

A second van has been located in Vic, around 50 miles from Barcelona, which is thought to be linked to the attack.

It does not contain explosives, RTVE reports.

Investigators believe it could have been intended to be used to help terrorists escape the scene of the attack.

The police force for Spain's Catalonia region says it has arrested a man in the Barcelona van attack and is "treating him as a terrorist".

The police force announced the arrest on Twitter Thursday evening.

It denied earlier media reports that officers had a suspect surrounded in a bar.

The tweet said: "There is nobody held up in any bar in the center of Barcelona. We have arrested one man and we are treating him as a terrorist."

Meanwhile, the region's interior minister is calling on residents to remain indoors and avoid unnecessary travel while the investigation continues.

The Islamic Commission of Spain has condemned the attack.

In a statement signed by its president, Riay Tatary Bakry, it said: "Spanish Muslims express their condolences to the families of the victims and express their solidarity with the people of Barcelona and Spain.

"The Islamic Commission of Spain reiterates its full commitment in the fight against any type of terrorism, and hopes that those responsible for these attacks will be arrested and brought to justice as soon as possible."

• June 19, 2017: A British man who had reportedly made anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim remarks drives into a crowd of worshippers outside a London mosque. One person dies and nine others are wounded.

• June 3, 2017: Three Islamic extremists drive into a crowd of pedestrians on London Bridge and then go on a knife rampage in nearby Borough Market, killing eight people and wounding dozens of others.

• May 22, 2017: A suicide bomber kills 22 people and injures dozens during an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in northern England.

• April 7, 2017: A man driving a hijacked beer truck hits pedestrians at a Stockholm department store, killing four.

• March 22, 2017: A man drives his rented SUV into pedestrians at London's Westminster Bridge, killing four, before stabbing a police officer to death.

• December 19, 2016: A hijacked truck plows through a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12.

• July 14, 2016: A truck driver targets Bastille Day revellers in Nice, killing 86.

• March 22, 2016: Suicide attacks on the Brussels airport and subway kill 32 and injure hundreds. The perpetrators have been closely linked to the group that carried out earlier attacks in Paris.

• November 13, 2015: Islamic State-linked extremists attack the Bataclan concert hall and other sites across Paris, killing 130 people.

• February 14, 2015: A gunman kills Danish filmmaker Finn Noergaard and wounds three police officers in Copenhagen. A day later the gunman, Omar El-Hussein, attacks a synagogue, killing a Jewish guard and wounding two police officers before being shot dead.

• January 7-9, 2015: A gun assault on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and an attack on a kosher grocery store kill 17 people. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility for the attack, saying it was in revenge for Charlie Hebdo's depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

• May 24, 2014: Four people are killed at the Jewish Museum in Brussels by an intruder with a Kalashnikov. The accused is a former French fighter linked to the Islamic State group in Syria.

• May 22, 2013: Two al-Qaida-inspired extremists run down British soldier Lee Rigby in a London street, then stab and hack him to death.

• March 2012: A gunman claiming links to al-Qaida kills three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in Toulouse, southern France.

• July 22, 2011: Anti-Muslim extremist Anders Behring Breivik plants a bomb in Oslo then launches a shooting massacre on a youth camp on Norway's Utoya island, killing 77 people, many of them teenagers.

• November 2, 2011: The offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris are firebombed after the satirical magazine runs a cover featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad. No one is injured.

• March 2, 2011: Islamic extremist Arid Uka shoots dead two U.S. airmen and injures two others at Frankfurt airport after apparently being inspired by a fake internet video purporting to show American atrocities in Afghanistan.

• July 7, 2005: Fifty-two commuters are killed in London when four al Qaida-inspired suicide bombers blow themselves up on three subway trains and a bus.

• March 11, 2004: Bombs on four Madrid commuter trains in the morning rush hour kill 191 people.