Abouyaaqoub is one of 12 suspects last Thursday’s attack on Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s most famous boulevard, in which a van plowed into holidaymakers, killing at least 14 people.

:: The main suspect in the Barcelona van attack that killed 13 people last week, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, was arrested on Monday in Sant Sadurni de Noya, west of Barcelona, Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia said.

Spanish police declined to confirm the report but said on Twitter shortly before that an “incident” was under way in Subirats, 10 km (6 miles) away, without giving further details.

Several Spanish media, including Cadena Ser radio, said one man wearing an explosive belt had been shot dead in Subirats.

Abouyaaqoub is one of 12 suspects last Thursday’s attack on Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s most famous boulevard, in which a van plowed into holidaymakers, killing at least 14 people.

The 22-year-old originates from the small town of Mrirt in Morocco, about 150 km south east of the capital, Rabat.

Abouyaaqoub’s brother El Houssaine and first cousins Mohamed and Omar Hychami are three of five men killed by police during a subsequent attack early on Friday in the Catalan town of Cambrils, further down the coast from Barcelona.

Younes’ aunt said that he moved to Spain around 1999, a year after his father, Omar Abouyaaqoub, and the both travelled there by boat.