Alcanar: the coastal idyll where young militants hatched Barcelona plot | World news
T he young men on powerful motorbikes had been coming and going for months, the throbbing sound of Kawasaki engines and the scattering of stones on the track leading to their country house in Alcanar, eastern Spain, announcing their arrival. Neighbours doubted the men, mostly young-looking and all seemingly of north African origin , had rented the house as a holiday home – despite the views out across the sparkling Mediterranean from this ramshackle estate of properties surrounded by scrub, pines and small olive groves . But they knew that Banco Popular had repossessed it and, having lived through a destructive, loan- fuelled property crash , Spaniards tend not to feel much concern when such properties are squatted. “Perhaps someone should have called the police,” said Carmen Circiumaru, who lives a few doors away. “But they never did anything that seemed especially suspicious.” Indeed, the young men, and at least one older, bearded man who sometimes appeared here, were quiet and respe...