Barcelona attack: Spanish police hunt suspect after deaths on La Rambla and in Cambrils - The Washington Post

Barcelona attack: Spanish police hunt suspect after deaths on La Rambla and in Cambrils - The 

Washington Post

BARCELONA — Spain was seized Friday with the realization that it had incubated a large-scale terrorist plot, as authorities across Europe engaged in a manhunt following the deadliest attacks to strike the country in more than a decade: two vehicle assaults in Barcelona and a Catalan coastal town.

Investigators believe that at least eight people plotted the attacks, putting them at a level of sophistication comparable to major strikes in Paris and Brussels in recent years. Other more recent attacks in London, Berlin and the southern French city of Nice were perpetrated by individuals operating largely on their own.

Spanish counterterrorism officials were scrambling to untangle the terrorist network.

France announced it was reinforcing its frontier with Spain, a signal of the fears that further violence could spill beyond Spanish borders. Anti-immigrant Central European leaders condemned the migration histories of the suspects, all of whom were believed to be of Moroccan descent.