using done a live scene when i was you mention as well it's not over yet we don't know if the people of this attack have been opera handed but it must be an incredible project to try and ensure a safety at such a scene. i i have been fortunate in not being present myself that any terror attack of this type i've spent quite a bit of time on frontlines during wartime and in war zones but i can assure you that if the security forces and if the citizens coordinate safety can be secured to a very high degree i would suggest that we don't have any option in europe anymore but to raise the security level but to do it in a manner that that that doesn't impede the freedom of people i'm not a person their home speaking for myself here i'm not a big fan of security cameras everywhere having you be tracked wherever you go i do think that restricting access to major pedestrians are affairs and i think that

security checks at entry points to major thoroughfares into major buildings is a reasonable is a reasonable response it is not the aspect then and a lot of people a lot of authorities in other countries and other cities will be looking at this thinking well yes we have a very busy tourist section as well but we also have cars etc i'm thinking of possibly rome for instance you've got cars and pedestrians i like there are there are a lot of areas here where they have to just say we need to turn places pedestrian we need to get bollards in there because we simply don't know when something like this can occur. absolutely correct there has to be i mean i think we've been learning this over the past two decades as these things began. you know with there were attacks in boston that began with the the jihadi s. and sohan in boston now. we have come to an era in which we're having

serious extended multi kolache of different ideologies and different religions and our job. as public public opinion influencers is to insist that the minimum be done and that is the restriction of easy targets from from vehicular traffic and the restriction of exit zones so that if somebody does make a terror attack they know there is no way out of there so these are these are two very basic restrictions and they are already practiced in most of north america with minimal restrictions on public freedom john appreciate you coming on the program short notice political analyst joan bosnich thank you thank you. of course a lot of reports coming in twists on verified i need to stress but one of the things we're hearing is that a vonn has hit three policeman in barcelona it is unclear we must rest with

a valis related to the initial incident three hours ago and we do not know whether this has been confirmed avan said three policemen on r.t. web editor was nearby when this incident three hours ago occurred he told us about the situation in the area and how he was forced to take shelter. i'm just off the street right now turned a couple of corners and now hiding at a close storm called. which is just off the cut out of the news that matt and i need. to you know owners and six other people outside of time because someone died down but there is police tape and barricades everywhere. and they're telling us to stay put and if we're going to go outside to even our own risk the police told us that we are to continue hiding right now because the person who originally rammed.

the people of. rather has taken hostages and the police are currently negotiating with them at a turkish restaurant near our location. ok a development in our breaking news story this hour a suspect has been arrested after a violent plowed into a crowd of pedestrians in the center of barcelona earlier catalan police also say one person was killed thirty more injured in the incident which is being treated terror related so that development is that a suspect has been arrested we did not know where the people or person who was in the white van fled to we believe they were holed up in a region perhaps in a restaurant a turkish restaurant. but now we are hearing that one person has been arrested local media reports just in the number the figures here it is quite disturbing they're saying that there are multiple other fatalities along with the one person

who has been confirmed dead and on the map here the one kilometer or so red line not as one of the most busiest tourist sites in barcelona in spain and in europe it happened at around five in the evening local time of course as always numerous tourists lots of locals perhaps coming home from work doing shopping this is the scene some of the clearer pictures that we've got later on. after this occurred of course a lot of ambulance a lot of emergency services in the area what you're seeing there is very damaged at the front we think it was going of incredible speeds on a very busy area when it hit an unknown number of people it's quite an evocative shelf there isn't it just to see. kill people a number of hours ago please be or not the following images as well are highly disturbing you're watching r t international in our developing news story from barcelona.

was. down hawkins is in the studio as well down you just being clearing some of the latest information we need do you need the stress of course some of it not verified at this stage only a couple of hours after the initial incident but what we've seen here it looks like a rental van ramming into a crowd of people and it looks to be terrible it indeed you know nothing those two things we can confirm with certainty the casualty figures are very much been going up and down depending on on the sources local media international media police sources i think what is safe to say this stage is very sad difficulty figures are

likely to go up from the one dead thirty two wounded officially confirmed by police maybe not as high as the thirteen or fourteen initially quoted but certainly multiple casualties and multiple serious casualties taken to hospital we know that ambulances are still or until ten fifteen minutes ago were arriving on scene up to now and a half after the incident took place just an indication of the seriousness of what happened there indeed look at the geography of the sea we had a map up earlier of where the attack took place the central boulevard is about one and a half kilometers long it's pedestrian ised through the middle but cars can travel on either side now given that this van was according to some eyewitness accounts traveling as fast the sixty to eighty kilometers kilometers an hour it's a big commercial given how densely packed that area would have been at the time one can only imagine the carnage in the panic and the stampede that would have taken place there many people perhaps in. there as well and of course this isn't the

first such attack we've seen you don't learn only have we seen them in the middle east notably in jerusalem and egypt where attackers were was shot dead by security forces fairly quickly of course we've seen them in europe as well most notably nice on the prominent place in november the attacks indeed yes some were twenty sixteen followed by the german capital by in the christmas market attack a dozen people killed there followed of course by the attacks in london and stockholm as well a consistent pattern here a vehicle a large vehicle usually rented driven at speed into crowds of people densely packed crowds indeed sometimes using multiple attacks where attackers subsequently then target people with knives or with guns as we may have seen in this case as well the whole situation unconfirmed we can take a look back at some of those incidents over the last year or so now.

i. would have some updates coming in you know from that one suspect detained by police we can confirm two suspects have now been detained we don't know if that was the van driver who of course for them for a day after the incident or the suspect who allegedly holed up in that cafe luna the ball is stumble mood just around the corner from the. we can't say for certain

. peace information coming through the post port as allegedly been found at the seam of the volatile in the valley rather it's a spanish ball sport of. national let's being reported. in spanish local media but of course because as of yet they know that disease at this stage really officially speculation but two suspects have been detained so the armed police operation the operation that's put the whole area under lockdown is still continuing schools will find out more about those suspects in the coming of don organs thank you ok let's get a recap in just if you're joining us welcome to our t.v. international ten past nine this thursday evening here in moscow one story dominating global headlines police have arrested a suspect from the terror incident in barcelona one person has been confirmed dead thirty two more injured after a vonn crashed into

a crowd of pedestrians in the center of barcelona it does appear to be a running incident it is being treated as terror now that happened on the last one lists tourist area love run that is the main street lost from this is the tourist area in general and around five in the evening local time it occurred credibly busy time august for tourists for people as well five pm people coming home from work and this is the latest pictures that we have there are done the side streets away from people being moved away from the main pedestrian boulevard back to their old tells back to their family as far as they can as a number of our guests were saying that we have seen previously an initial attack would happen and then something would occur afterwards where people work congregate and police obviously not taking any chances without doing a large area cutting off a large area of that. main tourist hub ok please be warned that the images we are

about to show you are disturbing. ok let's go live to authorities emily soup who has been just watching the situation on the fold among different news sites success trimly a lot of information coming in of course as we said before not a lot can be verified just hours after it but what is the situation what do we know . well you know as you and dan just discussed we now know that the spanish public broadcaster our t.v. has reported that one suspect has been arrested in relation to this attack now

earlier i did see a video on twitter purporting to show the moment of that arrest but of course we can't independently verify that video but what we know so far as local media saying that one suspect has been arrested and apparently two other suspects we don't know of include the first suspect that's been arrested or ready to happen detained by police there are being investigated that's linked to the attack. the incident what we know for sure is that the catalan police did confirm that this is being investigated as a terror related incident but at this point we don't exactly know who is responsible or what the motive is as with the details of the attack well there are unconfirmed reports that there had been a second van presumably being used as the getaway van for the driver well some local media are saying that this second van is now found in the small town of vic in catalonia and there are also reports the driver of the white van they carried out the attack while he apparently flee the scene by foot and is now armed and

holed up in a turkish restaurant nearby he apparently have hostages with him and there's a apparently a standoff situation outside the turkish restaurant so we know that the perpetrator is at large there's a manhunt going on there is really busy. is in lockdown very very popular tourist area at this point at this time of year is the peak traveling season but what we know so far is one person has been killed thirty two people injured and the number of people who are killed in this incident might likely go up because ten of those injured have been seriously wounded and i can also tell you about some of the reaction we've been seeing eye to this incident this terrible van attack in barcelona the u.s. russia germany france have all come down to condemn this attack on who is the mayor of london he tweeted london stands with barcelona against the evil of terrorism of course london suffered from islamist attacks in westminster in march and the london

bridge in june the u.s. security state rex tillerson he also offer his condolences and he also says that this incident does bear the hallmarks of a terror attack. were warning that terrorists around the world should know that the u.s. and our allies are resolved to find you and bring you to justice that's what he said in relation to this barcelona. attack as young claude young the president of european commission he also tweeted my thoughts are with the people of barcelona we will never be cowed by such bombers and so a lot of world leaders really reaction from world leaders about this incident in barcelona pouring an hour bring it to you as soon as we get them. yeah and also i've just been looking at some some tweets the american president has also tweeted donald trump the united states condemns the terror attack in barcelona spain on will do whatever is necessary to help be tough and strong we love you so

a lot of reaction coming in globally to what we saw in least for the. interesting just on what emily was saying that a car at par hops one of the cars being used to take away the people from the initial attack those people who carried out the instant a getaway car in fact being able to leave barcelona phoned in the small town side a small region just outside. barcelona that has not been verified but if it is we'll keep you abreast on developments of the hostage situation whether there is one at the turkish restaurant where the person who was driving the car believed to have fled and went into we of course don't have pictures from there because police have cordoned off the area they want people to get back as far as possible in case this is a related attack perhaps something. the worry is that something could happen afterwards

we've seen that before in other european cities when people cart a gate together after an attack something occurs so police quick to get people out of that area so yeah the incident as we have been hearing happened on the streets and busy tourist area perhaps you've been on it perhaps you're from there it's full of souvenir shops and bars coffee it's also linked to a couple only. central square always busy in summer time that region according to reports the turn from square all into the pavement unplug the street at speeds maybe sixty seventy kilometers an hour local journalists that. told us more about what occurred. by every day it's. every day of the year every day.

whether it's. actually local. and then. there's. thousands of people. every day and millions in the whole year it's the. next. where do they be. so there's thousands of people who's going there. if that doesn't have. many of you because there's people many different. every day in there. joining us. neal neal thanks for standing by there you've been on the line for a little while. do you think that spain is being targeted.

well i think this is just a pattern isn't it that we remember back in twenty forty in the the so-called press spokesman for isis. that naani actually issued a statement and he called for his followers the followers of isis to use cars and vehicles as weapons against nonbelievers and since then of course as your recent film said we've had attacks in nice in france in london around the world and in africa as well the middle east. spain of course that's from blasts a very popular tourist tree i was walking down there with my wife a few years ago everybody's been down there i think of course it's a very soft target if you drive a van in there you will kill lots of people which is sadly appears what's happened and so i think this is seems all the trademarks of an isis stroke al qaeda attack. and. maybe the latest want to i don't think we can be too surprised about this what happens after every attack we get the condemnations don't we from western leaders

saying how they stand with the city concerned. body expresses how they are in the outrage and then what happens nothing really happens to change and so we get another attack a few months later so i think it's about time now that we actually had a proper debate about this and what are we going to do what practical steps what the geo political steps we're going to do to reduce the threat to citizens not just in europe of this but as i said in africa the middle east and around the world yet do you think that the spanish authorities barcelona police a country that hasn't been involved for instance in in iraq in syria it has seen of course its own domestic terrorism before but do you think that authorities well are prepared for terror incidents like this because we heard witnesses saying about your lot of people fleeing the scene absolute carnage were police in control of this do you believe. it doesn't seem to be the case because spain has been involved in terrorist attacks before we think back to two thousand and four in the shocking new madrid train bombings when one hundred ninety two people were killed by al

qaeda so spain has got a history of this and of course we got the history of terrorist domestic terror attacks as well and so you would have thought that having seen what happened in france and the nice prominent this is the high tourist season this is the major tourist area of barcelona bearing in mind what's happened bearing in mind that isis and al qaeda have put out these statements the press spokespeople put out their statements calling on their followers to use cars and vehicles of course you would have thought they would have been a reasonably high alert having said that what can you really do practically to prevent this sort of thing where you can put up. ramps for example to protect the main tourist areas from people driving vehicles into them that's happened in london now it's happened a bit too late for the people on westminster bridge but it's happened now and i think that's a step a practical step is going to have to be taken in major to respond across europe now they're going have to put ramps and ballots to prevent people from driving cars into them if you're absolutely right of course of the two thousand and four madrid

metro attack i was meaning more about what is we've seen in recent times from from last summer until now and the attacks around europe and they are becoming increasingly common aren't they neal vonne attacks car attacks laurie g.c.b. we've seen in the middle east a lot over the past ten years it's not possible to stop it is it what is this solution to put in place here more pedestrian areas more bollards is it going to be just get cars out of there. i think i got to have a proper debate we've got to first of all take those proper security measures such as as i said more bollocks more ramps etc practical steps we can take greater security if it means of course more bag checks will be going to public buildings etc all those kind of measures but equally would have been a wider debate the trouble is when we have these attacks you know we get the the same people the same side saying the same things all the time we get the one hand people coming out with sort of islamophobia rhetoric saying it's all the muslims

send them back all this kind of racist stuff which is wrong and unhelpful because this isis problem is a very narrow problem within islam it's a particularly virulent violent strain of what had based sunni islam which is actually been cultivated by the west the western powers of cultivated this around the middle east and elsewhere to try to bring down secular governments like the one in syria so i think we need to talk about geopolitics and and the role that the western governments have actually played a game boosting the cause of isis we think back to twenty two over there was it the classified u.s. security report said the u.s. is our allies actually welcomed the rise of a salafist principality in syria as a way of weakening the assad government and so we played a very you know. very bad card here we've actually boosted and helped the very forces who are actually killing civilians in europe so that's got to stop foreign policy's got to be looked at we need to have a debate on different levels but i think we ought to get away from this kind of to for tat you know let's play more muslims and look for those kind of solutions we

can look a bit deeper than that a bit less superficial and actually have the kind of debate that we haven't had yet because how long will this to happen i was just going to just wait again for another month when we get a taxi in rome or attacks in athens you know it's about time that we could have that debate now yeah that as you say about the we've heard a lot of commentators saying the exact same thing you've been seeing in the hours since this attack journalist and broadcaster neil clark neil thank you. ok let's just recap what we know lots of information coming. in different times we're waiting for total verification but what we know so far is this katz alone is interior minister has said thirteen people have lost their lives fifty injured after a vonn plowed into a crowd of pedestrians in the center of barcelona earlier for the last number of hours we had been here from accounts of the authorities one person dead not being confirmed by the council only authorities we should stress thirty people dead while

the suspect has been arrested. ok now the attack happened in the last rumble ists tourist area run five in the evening local time please be warned the images you're about to show you are highly disturbing. the van reportedly drove five hundred meters done a pedestrian ice stretch of road the driver of the vehicle is said to have fled the scene believed to be armed and holed up in a bar in the area that we have heard in the past ten fifteen minutes or so that two people have been detained we do know don't know whether they were the people in

that particular van perhaps together we have found in a coordinated attack we don't know at this stage police also say that fifty six people have been taken to hospital after the attack people are being advised to avoid the city center and stay inside far away from las ramblas. let's look at. the streets on the west from this region perhaps you being there or perhaps you live there and credibly busy during the tourist season in august and lots of restaurants lots of cathedrals a trip in fact to barcelona is not done without you getting on less from less and seeing in all types of people from all across the world coming together and having fun i'm not that is why perhaps the attack is so venomous today in that area well in our t. web editor was nearby when the incident occurred he told us about the situation in

the area he was forced to take shelter a story from the year to many people today in barcelona. i am just off the street right now turned a couple of corners and now hiding close store called. which is just off the cut out to do something. to the mill owners and about six other people. someone down but there is police tape and barricades everywhere. and they're telling us to stay put and if we're going to go outside to leave our own risk the police told us that we are to continue hiding right now because the person who originally. the people of. rather has taken hostages and the police are currently negotiating with them at a turkish restaurant near our location. that hawkins joins me in the shooting just to recap what we're knowing and maybe put

a little bit of meat on the story. just hearing they say no suspects in the barcelona attack are holed up in the bar down we'll just come back to you in a moment because i think we have a local journalist on the line you know we do indeed not fully don't like not only we spoke a little bit earlier i'll speak up because i know it can be quite noisy not for our viewers just tuning in perhaps you're the first person they are listening to a viewpoint from that area what did you see. hi yes i'm just standing here right next to where everything happened just about hundred meters from. where this incident took place just right behind me we've got plastic at the loony i just right here and yeah you can see there's a lot of police here everything is still sealed off and people are trying to find their way back to their hotels there's

a lot of sort of confused tourists all the nearby metro stations are shut off so it's still pretty chaotic and you know you can hear the helicopters in the air and you can see a lot of sort of stress. faces a lot of tourists just not really knowing what to do and yeah it's still pretty chaotic. just describe the situation as you saw it as perhaps you were moving towards the area people were running away trying to get i police were shepherding them back to their hotels what was that like in the immediate aftermath of the attack. yes i wasn't there myself but a friend of mine was actually when it happened he was on a bus and everyone was asked to get off the bus and were shuffled into nearby restaurants and bars that just closed their doors and they were inside there for about an hour and a half he just told me that they were let out and they could see sort of all of the blood.