Cops uncover 'bomb factory'

Spanish police yesterday said they had uncovered a cache of 120 gas canisters at a house believed to be the bomb-making factory of suspects in terror attacks that claimed 14 lives, as Barcelona mourned victims of the rampage.

Meanwhile Russia yesterday said that a stabbing which injured seven people and was claimed by the Islamic State group is being probed by top investigators in Moscow.

And Finland observed a minute of silence yesterday for the victims of a stabbing attack that left two people dead in what is being investigated as the country's first-ever terror attack. Another eight people were wounded in the stabbing spree on Friday in the southwestern port city of Turku.

The suspected jihadists had been preparing bombs for "one or more attacks in Barcelona", regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero told reporters, revealing that traces of TATP explosive had also been found.

But the suspects accidentally detonated an explosive at the house on the eve of Thursday's attack in Barcelona -- an error that likely forced them to modify their plans.

Instead, they used a vehicle to smash into crowds on Barcelona's Las Ramblas boulevard as it was thronged with tourists, killing 13 people and injuring about 100.

Several hours later, a similar attack in the seaside town of Cambrils left one woman dead. Police shot and killed the five attackers in Cambrils, some of whom were wearing fake explosive belts and carrying knives.

The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attacks, believed to be its first in Spain.

Police are hunting a Moroccan man suspected of driving the van used in Barcelona, and warn that he could be at large outside Spain.

Three days after the attack that plunged the country into deep grief, locals and tourists turned out in force on Sunday to mourn victims at Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica.

King Felipe, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Catalonia's president, Carles Puigdemont, led the 90-minute ceremony, while heavily-armed police stood guard outside and snipers deployed on rooftops.

Traces of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) -- a homemade explosive that is an IS hallmark -- were also found at the bomb factory in Alcanar, about 200 kilometres south of Barcelona, where the gas canisters were uncovered.

Investigators said they believe the terror cell comprised at least 12 men, some of them teenagers.

An imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, was among the suspects, police confirmed.

Investigators are seeking to unravel the role of the imam, who is believed to have radicalised many of the youths in a small town called Ripoll at the foot of the Pyrenees.

Several suspects -- including Abouyaaqoub -- grew up or lived in the town of about 10,000 residents.