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Knife attack at Spanish police station a 'terrorist attack'

A police officer shot dead a man armed with a knife as he tried to attack a police station in Catalonia on Monday, just days after the one-year anniversary of a twin attack in the northern Spanish region that killed 16 people.

“We are treating it as a terrorist attack. The officer used her gun to save her own life,” Rafel Comes, a commissioner with the Catalan regional police, told a news conference in Cornella de Llobregat, where the attack took place.

The man arrived at the police station in the town near Barcelona at 5.45 am local time with a knife and “a clearly premeditated desire to kill an agent of our force,” he added, saying security was being reinforced at police stations across Catalonia.

The body of a man who tried to attack a police station is carried out of the premises in Cornella near the northeastern Spanish city of Barcelona. Source: AFP
The body of a man who tried to attack a police station is carried out of the premises in Cornella near the northeastern Spanish city of Barcelona. Source: AFP

Anti-terrorism police sources had earlier told AFP that the man was a 29-year-old Algerian who lived in the area, and had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) as he entered the station.

But Comes said the agent who shot the man dead can only recall hearing him invoking the name of “Allah” and the rest of what he said was incomprehensible.

The commissioner would not confirm the attacker was Algerian, saying police still needed to confirm that the Algerian identity papers he carried with him were in fact his.

The police station was cordoned off and funeral home employees removed the attacker’s body from the building, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

Spanish police prepare to raid the apartment building of the suspect. Source: AFP
Spanish police prepare to raid the apartment building of the suspect. Source: AFP

Officers searched the man’s home, which was located just a few hundred metres from the site of the attack.

The incident occurred just days after the first anniversary of a deadly jihadist rampage in Catalonia.

Sixteen people were killed on August 17, 2017 when a van drove into crowds on Barcelona’s popular Las Ramblas boulevard and in a knife attack in the nearby resort of Cambrils.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, Spain’s worst since the Madrid train bombings in 2004 when 191 people died and more than 1800 were injured.