Smiling photos of Barcelona terrorists from 2017 emerge

Chilling images published in the Spanish media on Monday show men in a terror cell preparing explosives ahead of last year's jihadist attacks in Barcelona and a nearby seaside resort that killed 16 people.

In one picture, a plotter smiles and points to the sky while wearing an explosives belt around his waist. In another, two men pose for the camera as they make the explosives.

There is an even a picture of one man posing next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

One of the men preparing the explosives is Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, who drove a van through a crowd of people on the popular Las Ramblas boulevard in the heart of Barcelona on August 17, 2017, killing 16 people.