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Barcelona Terrorists Planned Bigger Attack With Explosives

Bloomberg business news — Terrorists behind Thursday's attack in Barcelona had planned to launch a larger assault that included explosives, but that plan failed before 14 people were killed in two separate attacks involving vehicles. Bloomberg's Rodrigo Orihuela reports on 'Bloomberg Markets: European Close.' (Source: Bloomberg)

By

Rodrigo Orihuela and

August 18, 2017, 1:59 PM UTC

Terrorists behind the Barcelona attack had planned a devastating assault with explosives and may have rammed pedestrians with vehicles after their initial plan failed, the police chief heading the investigation said on Friday.

A large explosion in the early hours of Thursday brought down a building in Alcanar, where police think a group of terrorists had been plotting an attack for some time, Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero told reporters. Deprived of bomb-making material, they then carried out the twin strikes on Barcelona and Cambrils “in a more rudimentary way.”