Multiple terrorist incidents in Spain.

Graphic showing the path of the Barcelona attacker. BBC. 

Multiple terror incidents have struck Spain in separate incidents in Barcelona and Cambrils. BBC. The main attack involved a truck ramming into a tourist area in Las Ramblas, Spain. 13 people died in the attack and dozens were wounded. The attacker in that incident is still on the run. 4 more people were killed by police in Cambrils who had also attempted a van ramming attack. In another incident a house exploded killing one person in Barcelona. In the town of Alcanar, police raided another home that was involved in producing explosives. ISIS has taken credit for the series of terrorist attacks. 

My Comment:

Yet another incident in the worrying trend in vehicle ramming attacks. This one was a fairly effective one. It seems like the type of vehicle chosen as a weapon for these attacks has a major impact on how many people die. In the Nice attack there were dozens of deaths due to the attacker using an actual truck. In this case the attacker used a heavy van and killed 13 people. In other attacks using cars either nobody was killed or less than ten died. 

The reasons for the higher body counts should be obvious. A larger vehicle has more mass and once it has built up speed it is a lot harder to stop then a car. They are also a lot more able to resist damage and continue moving after hitting people and barriers. I would also expect that they are harder to bring down with gunfire. The only limiting factor is the relative difficulty of acquiring a heavy truck or van compared to a car. 

As bad as this situation was, it seems like greater tragedy was averted. The second incident in Cambrils doesn't have a whole lot known about it, but what is clear that a second attack was averted before it got too bad. It's clear that the Spanish security forces did a good job in averting the 2nd attack. 

The second attack seems, from what little we have seen, to have been a much more complicated and potentially serious incident. The attackers were rumored to have suicide belts. It's possible that those belts were fake, but if they weren't, then dozens of people could have died when they went off. The fact that 5th attacker was captured alive makes me think that they probably were fake though. 

The other incidents look like Spain is cracking down on this particular ISIS cell. It sounds like they found a couple of bomb factories and shut them down. And we know for a fact that this is one of the most significant ISIS cells since the Paris attacks. They were savvy enough to pull off a major ramming attack, a 2nd major terror attack the same day and had what looks like multiple bomb factories. That's not a lone wolf attacker. That's a major terrorist cell with scary capabilities. It's a minor miracle that this attack wasn't worse than it was. 

It's not a good sign that some of these people are still on the run. The attacker at Barcelona is still on the loose and should be considered extremely dangerous. And it is possible that the terrorists have more members still at larger. We have to consider, like the Charlie Hebdo and Paris attacks, this situation isn't over. 

I do have to say that I am worried about the proliferation of vehicle attacks. Before Nice, ramming attacks were pretty much unheard of. Now they seem to be happening all the time. Worst of all, it's not just Islamic extremists that are pulling these attacks off. Now there are copy cat attackers that have nothing to do with ISIS or other terror groups. People have realized that if they want to kill a lot of people all they need to do is find a group of pedestrians and run them over.