A van ploughed into crowds in the Spanish city of Barcelona on Thursday and a regional official said 13 people were killed, in what police said they were treating as a terrorist attack.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. “The perpetrators of the Barcelona attack are soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting coalition states,” the group’s Amaq news agency said said, referring to a United States-led coalition against the Sunni militant group.
Police said they had arrested two men linked to the attack in the heart of the city, but did not identify or describe their role. Earlier police were searching for the van’s driver who, according to local media, fled the scene on foot.
Witnesses saying the van zigzagged down one of Barcelona’s busiest tourist avenues, Las Ramblas, mowing down pedestrians and leaving bodies strewn across the ground.
A government official in the region of Catalonia, which includes Barcelona, said on Twitter that at least 50 people were injured.
