An impromptu memorial is seen a day after a van crashed into pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain, August 18, 2017. REUTERS/Susana Vera

WASHINGTON: A San Francisco area man on a delayed honeymoon was among the 13 people killed in Thursday's attack in Spain, his family told a local television station on Friday, hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed that an American citizen was dead.

Jared Tucker, 43, had gone to Barcelona to celebrate his first anniversary in the form of a belated honeymoon when he became separated from his wife as they were walking, his father, Dan Tucker told KGO television in San Francisco.

Jared Tucker's wife, Heidi Nunes Tucker, told the station that her husband had gone to find a restroom when the attackers struck, ploughing into a crowd of pedestrians with a van.

The driver of the van was one of five men shot dead by police in a Catalan seaside resort hours later, Spanish newspapers reported on Friday.

It was the latest in a string of attacks across Europe in the past 13 months in which militants have used vehicles as weapons - a crude but deadly tactic that is near-impossible to prevent and has now killed nearly 130 people in France, Germany, Britain, Sweden, and Spain.

Suspected extremists have been behind the previous attacks. Daesh said the perpetrators of the latest one had been responding to its call to target countries involved in a US-led coalition against the radical group.

Tucker, who lived in East Bay suburbs of San Francisco, leaves behind three daughters, the television station reported.