Ripoll, the quiet Pyrenean town that is an unlikely cradle of terror

Residents of the small Catalan town of Ripoll are still in a state of shock, after it emerged that it was home to most of the suspected terrorists involved in the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils that left 14 dead and over 100 injured.

“There are only about 11,000 of us and only 9% are immigrants,” said Jordi Munell, the town’s mayor, who has appealed for calm. “We practically all know each other.”

Ripoll lies in the foothills of the Pyrenees, 40 miles from the French border, and is best known for the Romanesque monastery Santa Maria de Ripoll. A less likely hotbed of jihadist activity would be hard to imagine.

However, four of the suspects shot dead in Cambrils on Friday – Moussa Oukabir, Houssaine Abouyaaqoub, Omar and Mohamed Hychami – were either born or lived in Ripoll, while Said Aallaa, who died with them, came from nearby Ribes de Freser. The man suspected of driving the van down Las Ramblas on Thursday, Younes Abouyaaqoub, who is still at large, is also a native of the town.

Three other suspects, including Driss Oukabir, the brother of Moussa, have also been arrested in Ripoll.

“We are in a state of shock,” said Said, father of the Oukabir brothers, from his village in Morocco. “My sons have never shown any signs of radicalisation.” An uncle added: “Moussa was a good boy, always kind and smiling. He didn’t smoke or drink.”

Ali Yassiné, president of Ripoll’s Annur Islamic Community, said he knew little of any of the suspects.

“They rarely attended the mosque. They said hello but that was all … I doubt if any of them could tell you the colour of the carpet in the mosque. If they’d come more often, they’d know that what they did – if it was them that did it – has nothing to do with Islam.”

“I went to secondary school with Younes [Abouyaaqoub],” said a former classmate, who wished to remain anonymous. “No one could have imagined he’d be involved in something like this. He was a shy boy who never liked to draw attention to himself.”

Halima, the wife of Salh el-Karib, one of the Ripoll suspects still in custody, protested his innocence. “We are Muslims and we don’t like these attacks any more than anyone else,” she said, adding that she had little confidence in the justice system.

None of the five anti-jihad operations carried out in recent years in the Girona region, which includes Ripoll, have focused on the town. However, Spain, and Catalonia in particular, have long been recognised by intelligence agencies as recruiting grounds for radical Islam.

According to a report compiled by the Real Instituto Elcano in 2013, nearly a third of those arrested in Spain on charges related to Islamic extremism were based in Catalonia, a quarter of them in Barcelona. In July 2001, two months before the 9/11 attacks in New York, Mohammed Atta, who led the attacks, met Ramzi Binalshibh, the link man between Atta’s group and al-Qaida, in Cambrils.