Police in Rotterdam detained the driver of a van with Spanish licence plates and a number of gas tanks inside after a concert by the US rock band Allah-Las was cancelled following a terrorism warning.

The Dutch city’s mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, said at a hastily arranged press conference that the van’s Spanish driver was being questioned by police. Military explosives experts were deployed to examine the van, police said. 

Police said the concert, which had been due to take place on Wednesday night, was called off after Dutch police received a terrorism warning. Aboutaleb said the warning had come from Spanish police.

He declined to give further details on the nature of the warning or where in Spain it had come from, adding that it was too soon to link the van to the unspecified threat directed at the concert. “It is not yet good to say that the things are linked,” Aboutaleb said. “It still has to be established that there was a link between the van and the threat. We can’t say that yet.”

A Dutch counter-terrorism official later said the van was not connected to the recent attack in Barcelona.

Associated Press reported that a Spanish counterterrorism official also said the van was not connected to the attacks in Spain.

Rotterdam police said they took the information about a threat “seriously enough that after discussion with organisers it was decided to cancel the event”.

The concert organiser, Rotown, said earlier on Twitter that the concert venue, a former grain silo called Maassilo, was being evacuated because of the unspecified threat. The show had not yet started when the decision to cancel it was made.

Dutch television showed officers in body armour outside Maassilo and what appeared to be members of the band leaving the venue in a white van with a police escort.

Allah-Las are a four-piece band from Los Angeles. Their band’s label, Mexican Summer, said: “Due to a potential terror threat at the Maassilo in Rotterdam, the Allah-Las show was cancelled tonight.

“Details are not available at this time as the incident is still under investigation. The band is unharmed and are very grateful to the Rotterdam police and other responsible agencies for detecting the potential threat before anyone was hurt.”

In an interview with the Guardian last year, band members said they had chosen the word Allah, Arabic for God, because they were seeking a “holy sounding” name and had not realised it might cause offence.

“We get emails from Muslims, here in the US and around the world, saying they’re offended, but that absolutely wasn’t our intention,” said the lead singer, Miles Michaud. “We email back and explain why we chose the name and mainly they understand.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/23/allah-las-gig-cancelled-in-rotterdam-due-to-terror-threat