Spain attacks investigation focusing on international links
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The investigation of attacks that killed 16 people in Barcelona and a nearby town is becoming increasingly international, as police piece together who ordered the carnage and how. The clues include a lightning-fast shopping trip to a Paris suburb and plane tickets to Belgium.
At the center of the probe is a mysterious imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, who went from trafficking people and drugs to secretly preaching jihad to young Muslims in northeastern Spain.
He was never directly linked to extremism or recruiting, but he appeared on authorities' radar more than once, spending nine months in an anti-radicalization program in prison. A short time after being released, he managed to pull together a tightly knit group of as many as nine men -- three sets of brothers and their childhood friends, all willing to die for his cause and keep the plot secret.
