layer is removed and the plot is exposed, the individuals start to scatter. and they move quickly, not necessarily on their own timetable. so we had the attack and barcelona, and now we have confirmation this evening of another terrorist event in the town of cambrils, which is in between the two locations. it is a coastal resort, police there are reporting that in the early hours of friday, their time, a white van rammed pedestrians on a boulevard, one of the walkways along the ocean, they injured people, and then when they were confronted by police, there was a shoe to down, and four people were killed. so we have three very significant events, spanish police are saying that at least two are connected. and to the third, they are also describing tonight as a terrorist plot, kimberly. kimberly: we will take it around the table. we have some questions for you, catherine.
according to the ap the police force for the region says five suspects shot and killed in cambrils were carrying bomb belts, detonated by the bomb squad. reports say that the suspects had hit civilians with a carr before being shot. today s attacks a sobering reminder about the difficulty in stamping out radicalism within the islamic faith. with more on that, we are joined by the founder and president of the islamic forum for democracy zuhdi jassar. joining us from phoenix. i just want to read from your talking points.oc you say that it is not about to stamping out to violent extremism, we have to focus on violent islamic system.. what do you mean by that? right now currently up in the total last eight years, focusedl on the symptom, terrorism, trying to predict when they will be violent. and unfortunately for the agents and global homeland security, very difficult to predict when
attack 70 miles away in the city of cambrils, thwarted by authorities. five terrorists there were killed. police say they re working under the assumption that the incident is linked to the one in barcelona. back at home, president trump under fire responding to the tragedy by tweeting out a debunk story about general pershing killing muslims over a century ago with bullets dipped into pig s blood. it is a fact-free tale that he also told during the campaign. the trump s presidency in peril as republican lawmakers questioning his fitness for office and his stability. before that, let s remember the victims as we begin our coverage this hour with arwa damon in barcelona. arwa. reporter: hi, poppy. one of those victims, to give you an idea of who these people were, was a father of a 5-year-old boy and a baby that was just a few months old. they were here on vacation.
incident in the town of cambrils and terragona, which is about 75 miles southwest of barcelona. what we know is this is a separate incident, not, it seems, related to what happened here in barcelona late this afternoon about two blocks away from me on las ramblas, which is the main pedestrian thoroughfare in barcelona where 30 were killed and more than 100 were injured when a van plowed into pedestrians and tourists, throwing them across the road. this menning women, and children. the van driver fled the scene. he abandoned the vehicle. and he as we understand it is still on the run. we were told earlier. there s no evidence he was armed. it does appear he may have been trying to get toward a getaway vehicle, but it s not clear if
was involveder in this second attempted terror attack? city? coastal that we cannot confirm. we know that five people were shot dead by police in a shoot-out following the attempted attack on cambrils, down on the southern coastline. so we know that the police think the two attacks aree connected and that they have shot five perpetrators. whether the man that drove the van down la rambla behind me earlier on thursday was the same man that made his may weighed down to the spanish town further down the coastline, we do not know that he had to. trace: lastly i m curious about the two explosions, one happened last night, and we understand that there were some fatalities in those explosions. those were linked by police in spain to the attack today. what are we learning about those