1. Some news today: A study by @F_reinares and @carolagc13 on the Barcelona attack reveals that the terrorists planned a far larger and more catastrophic event, including possibly a hit on the Eiffel Tower nytimes.com/2018/01/24/wor…
2. The data collected by the researchers indicates that the cell was planning to stuff explosives into two vans, which were going to be used as car bombs. One was to be used in Spain, but the other may have been destined for Paris. The researchers deduced this from the following:
3. Members of the 10-man cell made repeated trips to Paris, including in the days before the Aug 17 attack. On one of those trips, they bought a camera and used it to record footage of the Eiffel Tower. They decided to be tourists for a day? Or more likely was that surveillance?
4. That footage was found in a larger video clip recovered in the rubble of the group’s safehouse in Spain. The larger clip showed one of the attackers inside the safehouse, holding the TATP explosive and warning: “Spaniards, you are going to suffer.”
5. In addition, a cellphone used by one of the attackers showed Google Maps searches for various sites in Spain, including the iconic Sagrada Familia church and a Barcelona soccer stadium.
6. The reason that the researchers believe the plot was destined to be far more deadly is also because the enormous quantity of precursor chemicals used to make TATP, which were recovered inside of the safehouse they used in the locality of Alcanar in Spain.
7. (Sorry for the pregnant pause everyone; had a busy day at work. Please follow here for further details on Barcelona).
Just how much of the chemicals used to make TATP were found? The researchers say authorities recovered 500 liters of acetone & 340 liters of hydrogen peroxide
Just how much of the chemicals used to make TATP were found? The researchers say authorities recovered 500 liters of acetone & 340 liters of hydrogen peroxide
8. That’s a *boatload* of chemicals. That amount of raw ingredients is enough to make over 200 kg of TATP. How much is that exactly? Consider this: The Paris attackers had at most a few lbs of TATP in their suicide belts. Brussels airport bombers had around 20 kg per suitcase. 
9. See the assessment below of what the impact of two car bombs loaded with 100 kg of TATP each would have had. Keep in mind that the two 20-kilogram suitcases of TATP which ISIS rolled into the Brussels airport in 2016 killed over 30 people. What would 5x that amount do? 
10. Another telling detail we were able to glean from the work of @CTCWP is that the cell acquired most of the raw materials for the bomb starting Aug 1. On August 16, they rented the two vans, signing a 7-day lease. The attack, we can deduce, was supposed to take place that week
11. So what exactly spared us - or at least spared us the worse scenario? On Aug 16, the cell made a mistake in handling the TATP, a substance nicknamed the “Mother of Satan” because of its volatility & the number of times the explosive cost the bombmaker his life. The result: 
12. The catastrophic explosion killed 2 of the 10 members of the cell and sent a 3rd to the hospital. The surviving members then scrambled to put their plan in action. It appears a phone call from the police to the attacker who drove the van into Las Ramblas set it all in motion
13. According to the phone logs, police called the driver of 1 of the vans at 3 pm on the day of the attack. At that point, he was 1 hour outside the Barcelona city center. By 430 ppm the same van was careening into tourists on Las Ramblas. Call appears to have set off attack 
14. Nine hours later, a 2nd car rammed into pedestrians in the seaside town of Cambrils. Both the Las Ramblas and the Cambrils attackers were wearing fake suicide belts, a tactic promoted by ISIS supporters which is meant to draw police fire so that the killer can be "martyred" 
15. The burning question for me is to what extent was ISIS involved? Were the attackers receiving cybercoaching from operatives abroad, as we've seen in numerous other attacks in Europe and beyond? For details on how ISIS remote controls attacks, see: nytimes.com/2017/02/04/wor…
16. What we learn from @F_Reinares & @carolagc13 is that a notebook was found inscribed with the name of the group's ringleader. An inscription described the cell members as the "soldiers of the Islamic State in al-Andalus," the lingo ISIS uses for the Iberian penninsula 
17. We also learn that the group bought pillowcases to store the TATP. (I confess, I don't fully understand why - but apparently that's where they planned to store some of it.). One of them is inscribed with the ISIS logo using a marker.
18. Those details show allegiance to ISIS - which we already knew. But is there evidence of actual contact? The report (sadly) is unable to answer that question, but it points to the mysterious and unaccounted for trips that members of the cell made to various foreign countries
19. In addition to the repeated trips to Paris - including one just before the attack where members of the cell stayed 6 km from a location where French authorities discovered another ISIS-linked TATP lab, one member of the cell traveled to Morocco in the days before Aug 17
20. Like most of the attackers, the cell member who traveled to Morocco is of Moroccan heritage, so that's not necessarily surprising. But what is surprising is family members say that the cell member failed to stop by to visit his own father, despite being there for circa 9 days
21. Other cell members made unexplained trips to Zurich. Could one of those trips have been for the purpose of connecting with ISIS operatives? The question remains unanswered. I hope someday we will get to the bottom of those mysterious trips.
22. What is clear is that once the Spanish discovered the footage of the Eiffel Tower in the rubble, they alerted the French. The French considered the footage troubling enough that they erected a glass barrier around the iconic monument to protect against vehicular attacks 
23. One last tantalizing detail: 3 months before the attack, US intelligence sent authorities in Spain a warning, stating that they had unverified information indicating that ISIS may be planning to strike La Rambla in the summertime: 
24. Both the head of Mossos and the president of the Catalan autonomous government and other officials denied having received this warning. Later they conceded that they had received it, but called it information of "low probability."
Thank you to all for following and g'night!
Thank you to all for following and g'night!
