BARCELONA: Grief-stricken Barcelona paid homage Sunday to victims of two terror assaults at a mass in the city’s Sagrada Familia church, as investigators turned their focus to a missing Moroccan imam believed to have radicalized the young attackers.
King Felipe, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Catalonia’s president Carles Puigdemont led the ceremony mourning the 14 people killed by jihadists who used vehicles to mow down pedestrians in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas boulevard on Thursday and in the nearby seaside resort of Cambrils early Friday.
“These have been days of tears, many tears,” said auxiliary bishop Sebastia Taltavull.
Outside the church, snipers were posted on rooftops surrounding the landmark building by Gaudi, while heavily armed police stood guard as hundreds of people gathered under grey skies.
Catalonia resident Teresa Rodriguez said she had turned up to pray for the victims.
“What happened in Las Ramblas is really hard for us, we go for walks there often, it could have happened to me, my children or anyone. And here we are. It’s huge, huge,” she said as she fought back tears.
Later Sunday, nearly 100,000 people were expected at Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium for their team’s first game of the season, to be marked by a minute of silence for the victims.
Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said Saturday the cell behind the carnage that also injured 120 had been “dismantled,” although local authorities took a more cautious tone.
Police were still hunting 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, who media reports say was the driver of a van that smashed into crowds on the popular Las Ramblas boulevard on Thursday, killing 13 people.
Hours later, there was a similar assault in the seaside town of Cambrils that left one woman dead. Police shot and killed the five attackers, some of whom were wearing fake explosive belts.
An extensive security operation including roadblocks was mounted overnight across Catalonia.
Daesh group claimed responsibility for the attacks, believed to be its first in Spain.
The terror cell in Spain reportedly comprised at least 12 young men, some of them teenagers.
Investigators are seeking to unravel the role of an imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, who is believed to have radicalized many of the youths from a small town called Ripoll, at the foot of the Pyrenees.
Several of the suspects — including Abouyaaqoub — grew up or lived in the town of about 10,000 inhabitants.
On Saturday, police raided the imam’s apartment in Ripoll, his flatmate, who would only identify himself as Nourddem, told AFP.
Spanish media quoting police sources, said the officers were looking for DNA traces in the apartment to compare with body parts found in an explosion in a home in Alcanar, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Barcelona, where the alleged jihadists were believed to have been building bombs.
Police said they believed the suspects were planning a much larger attack.
“They were preparing one or several attacks in Barcelona, and an explosion in Alcanar stopped this as they no longer had the material they needed to commit attacks of an even bigger scope,” said Josep Lluis Trapero of Catalonia’s police.
Security forces were seen removing dozens of gas canisters from the house in Alcanar on Friday.
The imam was also known to police, according to Spanish media, which reported that he had spent time in prison.
El Pais and El Mundo quoting anti-terrorist forces said the imam had met prisoners linked to the March 2004 Al-Qaeda-inspired bombing attack on commuter trains in Madrid that killed 191 people, the worst terror attack in Europe.
A clearer picture is emerging of the suspected perpetrators.
Most of them are children of Moroccan immigrants, including Ripoll-born Moussa Oukabir, 17, one of five suspects shot dead in Cambrils. His older brother Driss is among the four arrested.
In Morocco, Moussa and Driss’s father Said broke down, surrounded by relatives.
“I hope they will say he’s innocent... I don’t want to lose my two sons,” he told AFP.
A cousin said Moussa “loved playing football, having a good time, chatting up girls.”
He traveled to Morocco almost every year for the summer holidays and was expected back last Tuesday.
“The last few months, he started to become interested in religion. He used to go to a mosque in Ripoll. Maybe that’s where he was brainwashed,” the cousin said.
Victims of the attack came from three dozen countries including Algeria, Australia, China, France, Ireland, Peru and Venezuela, reflecting Barcelona’s status as Spain’s most popular tourist destination.
Fifty-four people are still in hospital, including 12 in critical condition, Catalan emergency services said.
With the peak summer tourism season still in full swing, the Spanish government ordered security ramped up in crowded places, although it kept the terror threat level at four out of a maximum five.
Tourism has been vital to Spain’s economic recovery, and because it has until now been spared the wave of extremist attacks that hit Europe, it has recorded a surge as visitors shunned more restive destinations such as Tunisia and Egypt.
Spain mourns attack victims as probe zeroes in on imam
Spain mourns attack victims as probe zeroes in on imam
Biden praises COP29 deal, vows US action despite Trump
- Biden hailed the goal as “ambitious,” though poorer nations quickly decried it as inadequate
- As agreed, developed nations will pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies and prepare for worse disasters
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden praised the COP29 deal Saturday as a “significant step” to fighting global warming, and pledged continued action by America despite his incoming successor Donald Trump’s climate skepticism.
“While there is still substantial work ahead of us to achieve our climate goals, today’s outcome puts us one significant step closer,” Biden said in a statement.
After two exhausting weeks of negotiations in Azerbaijan, the pact hammered out commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies and prepare for worse disasters.
Biden hailed the goal as “ambitious,” though poorer nations quickly decried it as inadequate.
The Baku meeting kicked off shortly after Trump won a new term in the White House, potentially setting the stage for him to undo actions by Biden’s administration.
Biden, who leaves office on January 20, said he was “confident” the United States “will continue this work: through our states and cities, our businesses, and our citizens, supported by durable legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act.”
“While some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that’s underway in America and around the world, nobody can reverse it — nobody.”
UAE foreign ministry says monitoring case of missing Moldovan citizen
- Zvi Kogan, a Moldovan citizen, was reported missing since Thursday
- Ministry says it is “in close contact with his (Kogan’s) family to provide them with all means of necessary support.”
RIYADH: The United Arab Emirate’s foreign ministry on Sunday said it is closely monitoring the case of Zvi Kogan, a Moldovan citizen who was reported missing since Thursday.
In a press statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said it is “in close contact with his (Kogan’s) family to provide them with all means of necessary support.”
Majed Al Mansoori, MOFA director of foreign nationals affairs, was quoted in the statement as saying that the ministry was also in contact with the Embassy of Moldova in Abu Dhabi about the case.
Mansoori further said the Ministry of Interior “is implementing extensive measures in its search for the missing person, affirming that the relevant authorities in the UAE have initiated the search operations and investigations immediately following the receipt of the report.”
Wire agencies reported that the missing person was a rabbi who also held Israeli citizenship and that the Israeli prime minister’s office on Saturday night acknowledged Kogan’s disappearance, without elaborating.
The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.
However, Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza and increasing aggression against Lebanon have sparked deep anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals from other states and others living in the UAE.
Gunman shot dead, 3 police injured in shooting near Israeli embassy in Jordan
- Many of Jordan’s 12 million citizens are of Palestinian origin, they or their parents having been expelled or fled to Jordan in the fighting that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948
AMMAN: A gunman was dead and three policemen injured after a shooting near the Israeli embassy in neighboring Jordan, a security source and state media said on Sunday.
Police shot a gunman who had fired at a police patrol in the Rabiah neighborhood of Amman, state news agency Petra reported, citing public security, adding investigations were ongoing.
Jordanian police had earlier cordoned off an area near the heavily policed embassy after gunshots were heard, witnesses said. Two witnesses said police and ambulances rushed to the Rabiah neighborhood, where the embassy is located.
The area is a flashpoint for frequent demonstrations against Israel. The kingdom has witnessed some of the biggest peaceful rallies across the region as anti-Israel sentiment runs high over the war in Gaza.
Police had called on residents to stay in their homes as security personnel searched for the culprits, a security source said.
Many of Jordan’s 12 million citizens are of Palestinian origin, they or their parents having been expelled or fled to Jordan in the fighting that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948. Many have family ties on the Israeli side of the Jordan River.
Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel is unpopular among many citizens who see normalization of relations as betraying the rights of their Palestinian compatriots.
A $300B a year deal for climate cash at UN summit sparks outrage for some and hope for others
BAKU, Azerbaijan: United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping developing nations cope with the ravages of global warming in tense negotiations.
The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times a deal of $100 billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
But it was not quite the agreement by consensus that these meetings usually operate with and some developing nations were livid about being ignored.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev gaveled the deal into acceptance before any nation had a chance to speak. When they did they blasted him for being unfair to them, the deal for not being enough and the world’s rich nations for being too stingy.
“It’s a paltry sum,” India negotiator Chandni Raina said, repeatedly saying how India objected to rousing cheers. “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it.”
She told The Associated Press that she has lost faith in the United Nations system.
After a deal, nations express their discontent
A long line of nations agreed with India and piled on, with Nigeria’s Nkiruka Maduekwe, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change, calling the deal an insult and a joke.
“I’m disappointed. It’s definitely below the benchmark that we have been fighting for for so long,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, of the Panama delegation. He noted that a few changes, including the inclusion of the words “at least” before the number $300 billion and an opportunity for revision by 2030, helped push them to the finish line.
“Our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over,” he said.
The final package pushed through “does not speak or reflect or inspire confidence,” India’s Raina said.
“We absolutely object to the unfair means followed for adoption,” Raina said. “We are extremely hurt by this action by the president and the secretariat.”
Speaking for nearly 50 of the poorest nations of the world, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more mild, expressing what he called reservations with the deal. And the Alliance of Small Island States’ Cedric Schuster said he had more hope “that the process would protect the interests of the most vulnerable” but nevertheless expressed tempered support for the deal.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that he hoped for a “more ambitious outcome.” But he said the agreement “provides a base on which to build.”
Some see deal as relief following tough talks
There were somewhat satisfied parties, with European Union’s Wopke Hoekstra calling it a new era of climate funding, working hard to help the most vulnerable. But activists in the plenary hall could be heard coughing over Hoekstra’s speech in an attempt to disrupt it.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”
“It was not certain. This was tough,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, of (a) multilateral system having real difficulties, the fact that we could get it through in these difficult circumstances is really important.”
UN Climate Change’s Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called the deal an “insurance policy for humanity,” adding that like insurance, “it only works if the premiums are paid in full, and on time.”
The deal is seen as a step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the UN talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and carbon emissions keep rising.
Hopes that more climate cash will follow
Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.
“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”
And even though it’s far from the needed $1.3 trillion, it’s more than the $250 billion that was on the table in an earlier draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit.
Other deals agreed at COP29
The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of the oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.
Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon pollution rights, an idea that was set up as part of the Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Backers said a UN-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.
Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.
“What they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.
With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.
Daesh group claims attack on Sufi shrine in Afghanistan
- A local resident, who said he knew victims of the attack, said worshippers had gathered at the Sayed Pasha Agha shrine on Thursday evening
KABUL: Daesh (IS-K), the terrorist group’s branch in Afghanistan, on Saturday claimed responsibility for a gun attack that left 10 people dead at a Sufi shrine in northern Baghlan province.
Taliban authorities in Kabul have repeatedly said they have defeated IS-K, but the group regularly claims responsibility for attacks, notably against Sufi or Shiite minorities, targets they consider heretical.
On Friday, interior ministry spokesman Abdul Matin Qani told AFP that a gunman opened fire on Sufis “taking part in a weekly ritual” at a shrine in a remote area of Nahrin district, killing 10 people.
A local resident, who said he knew victims of the attack, said worshippers had gathered at the Sayed Pasha Agha shrine on Thursday evening.
They had begun a Sufi chant when “a man shot at the dozen worshippers,” he said on condition of anonymity.
“When people arrived for morning prayers, they discovered the bodies,” he added.
The UN special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, wrote on X: “Religious minorities remain under grave threat. More prevention, protection & justice needed.”
The Daesh group accuses Sufis of worshipping more than one god because of their devotion to saints.
In mid-September, the group claimed responsibility for an attack in central Afghanistan that killed 14 people who had gathered to welcome pilgrims returning from Karbala in Iraq, one of the holiest sites for Shiites.
