Image copyright EPA Image caption Police said the man had entered the building with the aim of attacking officers

A man wielding a large knife and shouting in Arabic targeted officers on Monday at a police station south of Barcelona, in what police are calling a terrorist attack.

The attacker, said to be 29 and of Algerian origin, was shot dead as he lunged towards officers, said police.

Spain's north-east Catalan region has been marking the anniversary of the 2017 jihadist attack on Barcelona.

However, police said they had found no evidence the incidents were linked.

The attacker, identified locally as Abdelouahab Taib, approached the police station in the town of Cornellà de Llobregat at 05:52 (03:52 GMT) on Monday, buzzing the intercom and demanding to be allowed in.

When a woman officer behind a reception window opened the door, the man lunged at her "with a clear intent to kill", Police Commissioner Rafel Comes told reporters.

The man shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) as he rushed forward.

The officer opened fire and the attacker was fatally wounded, the commissioner said, without saying how many shots were fired. The officer had used a gun to save her life, he said, although it was unclear if she was behind a glass partition at the time.

"For now we are treating it as a terrorist attack," he said, although he stressed there was nothing at this stage to link him to the jihadist cell involved in the attacks on Barcelona's Las Ramblas venue on 17 August last year and Cambrils hours later.

Sixteen people were killed in the twin attacks and the man who drove a van into civilians on Las Ramblas was eventually tracked down and shot dead on 21 August.

Abdelouahab Taib had been living in Spain for several years and had a foreigners' identity number. He had no criminal record and lived with a Spanish woman, although local media reported that they had begun divorce proceedings.

Members of the Catalan police force and other authorities searched the man's home a short distance from the police station while his partner was questioned.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Police searched the man's home on Monday near the scene of the attack

Police stations across Spain were put on alert as a result of Monday's incident.

Spain has been on its second highest terrorist alert level - four out of five - since June 2015.

Teresa Cunillera, the Spanish government's representative in Catalonia, had earlier refused to be drawn on the motive for Monday's incident until police had investigated further.

"Reaching conclusions is very hard before they have carried out the minimum of checks and looked into the motives," she told Spanish radio.</s>Barcelona police are treating man's attack with a knife at a city police station as a terrorist incident

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Barcelona police are treating man's attack with a knife at a city police station as a terrorist incident.</s>BARCELONA, Spain — Barcelona police are treating man’s attack with a knife at a city police station as a terrorist incident.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>A man armed with a knife charged an officer at a police station near Barcelona early Monday in an attack that authorities are investigating as a terrorist incident.

The man, identified in Spanish media as Abdelouahab Taib, reportedly approached the station in the town of Cornella de Llobregat at 5:52 a.m. local time and rang the intercom. When an officer opened the door, the man lunged at her with the knife, shouting "Allahu Akbar," according to the BBC.

Police Commissioner Rafel Comes said the man had a "clear intent to kill," according to the BBC. He added, "For now we are treating it as a terrorist attack."

The Spanish government's representative in Catalonia, Teresa Cunillera, said in a radio interview that authorities have not determined a motive for the attack. "Reaching conclusions is very hard before they have carried out the minimum of checks and looked into the motives," she said, according to the BBC.

Police stations across Spain have been put on alert because of Monday's incident, according to Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan police force.

Taib is a 29-year-old Algerian who had been living in Spain for several years with foreign identity documents, according to El Pais.

The attack comes just days after the anniversary of last year's terrorist attacks in Barcelona and the resort town of Cambrils that left 16 people dead and more than 100 others injured.

Police say at this stage there is no evidence linking those attacks with the incident on Monday.</s>Detectives in Barcelona say they are treating an attempted attack at a police station as a suspected terrorist incident.

A suspect was shot dead at a police station in Cornellà on the outskirts of the city earlier today.

Police said the man had attempted to attack an officer with a 'large knife' during the incident this morning.

In comments quoted by Reuters, local police official Rafel Comas told reporters: "However you look at it, it was a knife attack against an officer [by a man who] shouted 'Allah is great' and other things that were impossible to make out.

"For now, we are treating it as a terrorist attack."

Security has been stepped up at police facilities across Spain as a result.

Police added that the suspect lived near the station, and had been in the country 'for years'.

It comes only days after Barcelona marked the first anniversary of the deadly terror attacks last August that left 16 people dead.</s>Update: Barcelona police are treating a knife attack on officers at a city police station as a terrorist incident.

Commissioner Rafel Comes said officers shot the man dead after he entered the station in Cornella district and pulled out a knife.

The man was shot down by officers (AP)

Mr Comes said the man shouted “Allah” and other words that officers did not understand.

Police have found no evidence linking the incident to last year’s terror attacks in Barcelona and nearby Cambrils, which killed 16 people.

Intelligence services are helping with the investigation.

Earlier: Knife attacker gunned down by police in Barcelona

A man who attacked officers with a knife at a police station in Barcelona has been gunned down.

The incident occurred just before 6am local time (5am Irish time) in the Cornella district on the outskirts of the city, police said.

Police said the man “intended to attack police officers”, though they did not say whether the man was killed.

A short time after the incident, a body was taken out of the police station on a stretcher and placed in a mortuary van.

Police said an investigation was launched and a news conference would be held later in the morning.</s>Armed Catalan police outside the station in Cornella de Llobregat. Photo: AFP

A police officer shot dead a man armed with a knife as he tried to attack a police station in the northern Spanish region of Catalonia on Monday, in what police are treating as a "terrorist attack".

Police said the man invoked the name of Allah during the assault, which came just days after the first anniversary of a twin attack in Catalonia that killed 16 people.

The man arrived at the closed police station in the town of Cornella de Llobregat near Barcelona at 5:45 am (0345 GMT) and repeatedly pressed the buzzer to be let in, Rafel Comes, a commissioner with the Catalan regional police, told a news conference.

After police allowed him in, the man pulled out a "large knife" and lunged at officers in "a clearly premeditated desire to kill an agent of our force," Comes said.

"The officer used her gun to save her own life," Comes said, adding that "we are treating it as a terrorist attack".

The man shouted "Allah" as well as words the police officers did not understand, Comes said.

Anti-terrorism police sources had earlier told AFP the man was a 29-year-old Algerian, but Comes said police still needed to confirm that the Algerian identity papers he carried with him were in fact act his.

Officers searched the man's home, which was located just a few hundred metres (yards) from the site of the attack.

Resident Conchi Garcia, a 50-year-old office worker, said the man suspected in the attack came to the neighbourhood two years ago, moving in with a single mother who had always lived in the area.

"She started wearing the veil overnight. It was strange," Garcia told AFPTV.

Another neighbour, who would only give her first name, Mary, said police "monitored the couple's movements closely".

Security has been reinforced at police stations across Catalonia.

The incident occurred just days after the one-year anniversary of a deadly jihadist rampage in Catalonia.

Sixteen people were killed on August 17th and 18th, 2017 when a van drove into crowds on Barcelona's popular Las Ramblas boulevard and in a knife attack in the nearby resort of Cambrils.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, Spain's worst since the Madrid train bombings in 2004 when 191 people died and more than 1,800 were injured.

Spain has kept its terrorist alert at the second-highest level since 2015.

Catalonia, which is home to a significant number of second-generation North African immigrants, has had a long history of Islamic militant activity.

Spain's first Muslim extremist -- a member of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) -- was uncovered in Catalonia in 1995.

Mohammed Atta, the pilot who slammed a passenger plane into one of New York's World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, spent time in Catalonia shortly before the attacks.

One in four people detained in Spain in relation to extremist Muslim-linked terrorism come from the Catalan province of Barcelona, according to a study published last year by the Real Instituto Elcano, a Spanish think-tank, which called the province the country's "main centre of jihadist activity".

There have been a string of similar incidents in neighbouring France targeting police and soldiers, including one in January 2016 in which police shot dead a man wielding a cleaver and yelling "Allahu akbar" as he tried to attack a police station in northern Paris.

The Islamic State group has frequently called on their followers to attack soldiers and police in France, who they see as a legitimate target because they represent the French state.

Separately on Monday, three people were seriously injured when a car mounted a pavement in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza and sped off, sparking fears of a vehicle attack.

However a local police spokesman said it was a road accident, and the two occupants of the car were later detained.</s>BARCELONA: A police officer shot dead a man armed with a knife as he tried to attack a police station in Catalonia yesterday, just days after the one-year anniversary of a twin attack in the northern Spanish region that killed 16 people. “We are treating it as a terrorist attack. The officer used her gun to save her own life,” Rafel Comes, a commissioner with the Catalan regional police, told a news conference in Cornella de Llobregat where the attack took place.

The man arrived at the police station in the town near Barcelona at 5:45 am with a knife and “a clearly premeditated desire to kill an agent of our force,” he added, saying security was being reinforced at police stations across Catalonia. Anti-terrorism police sources had earlier told AFP that the man was a 29-year-old Algerian who lived in the area, and had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) as he entered the station.

But Comes said the agent who shot the man dead can only recall hearing him invoking the name of “Allah” and the rest of what he said was incomprehensible. The commissioner would not confirm the attacker was Algerian, saying police still needed to confirm that the Algerian identity papers he carried with him were in fact his. The police station was cordoned off and funeral home employees removed the attacker’s body from the building, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

Officers searched the man’s home, which was located just a few hundred meters from the site of the attack. The incident occurred just days after the first anniversary of a deadly jihadist rampage in Catalonia. Sixteen people were killed on August 17, 2017 when a van drove into crowds on Barcelona’s popular Las Ramblas boulevard and in a knife attack in the nearby resort of Cambrils. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, Spain’s worst since the Madrid train bombings in 2004 when 191 people died and more than 1,800 were injured.

IS targets police

 Spain has kept its terrorist alert at the second-highest level since 2015. Catalonia, which is home to a significant number of second-generation North African immigrants, has had a long history of Islamic militant activity. Spain’s first Muslim extremist – a member of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) – was uncovered in Catalonia in 1995.

Mohammed Atta, the pilot who slammed a passenger plane into one of New York’s World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, spent time in Catalonia shortly before the attacks. And in 2008, a plot targeting Barcelona’s underground trains was foiled when it was already in advanced stages. One in four people detained in Spain in relation to extremist Muslim-linked terrorism come from the Catalan province of Barcelona, according to a study published last year by the Real Instituto Elcano, a Spanish think-tank, which called the province the country’s “main centre of jihadist activity”.

There have been a string of similar incidents in neighboring France targeting police and soldiers, including one in January 2016 in which police shot dead a man wielding a cleaver and yelling “Allahu akbar” as he tried to attack a police station in northern Paris. That incident came on the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The Islamic State group has frequently called on their followers to attack soldiers and police in France, who they see as a legitimate target because they represent the French state._ AFP</s>A man armed with a knife was killed when he attacked a police station near the northeastern Spanish city of Barcelona early Monday, police said.

"A man armed with a knife entered the police station in Cornella to attack the officers. The attacker was shot," the Catalonia regional police said on Twitter.

A police spokesman refused to comment on local media reports that the man was from Algeria.</s>MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police said on Monday they were treating as a terrorist attack an attempted assault on a police station near Barcelona by a man armed with a large knife who was then shot dead.

“Right now we are treating this as a terrorist attack,” regional investigative police chief Rafel Comas told a news conference, adding that the attacker had said “Allah is great”.
An officer fatally shoots a man in Cornellà, Barcelona, Spain, after he storms into a Mossos d'Esquadra police station with a knife. Police are treating the incident as an attempted terrorist attack.