Friday, August 18, 2017

Jared Tucker, 43, American Man Among the Missing in Barcelona Attack

Jared Tucker and his wife, Heidi Nunez
An American man is among the missing after yesterday's terrorist attack in Barcelona, according to news sources. Today's article from Daily Mail also summarizes yesterday's events:
San Francisco wife in desperate search for her husband in the wake of the Barcelona terror attack - after he went to find a toilet moments before a van rammed into crowds on Las Ramblas
  • Jared Tucker, 43, was in Las Ramblas area of Barcelona during the terror attack
  • 13 are dead, around 100 wounded after van ploughed through crowds of people
  • Tucker and wife Heidi Nunez were shopping for souvenirs when chaos unfolded
  • She fled the area with a friend unscathed but later returned to try and find him
A San Francisco man who was in the Barcelona tourist district when a terrorist ploughed a van through dozens of bystanders has not been seen since.
Jared Tucker, 43, was in Las Ramblas area with his wife Heidi Nunez when they became separated in the chaos of the attack which left 13 dead and more than 100 injured.
Hours after the first attack, five jihadis in fake suicide vests were shot dead by police after launching a second onslaught in Cambrils, 70 miles from Barcelona.
Tucker's brother-in-law Kalani Kalnui says they were buying souvenirs on the sidewalk when the vehicle came rampaging through the street packed with holidaymakers.
He told ABC News: 'He left, and seconds later she was pushed over into the kiosk and she was disoriented trying to find him. Police evacuated... her from the area.'
Kalnui says Nunez was able to flee the area unscathed but went back to try and find her husband.
Nunez is said to have contacted hospitals, temporary rescue centers and the Red Cross to try and find Tucker.
She was able to get out of the area with the friend they were staying with in Barcelona, who came and picked her up.'
'She's not able to find out information,' Kalnui said. '[Officials] haven't posted anything as far as names who are injured or deceased.'
Spanish officials have said the dead and injured from the attack, in which a jihadi drove a van through crowds of people at 60mph, span 24 different countries.
Police are today hunting for Europe's most wanted man Moussa Oukabir, an 18-year-old Moroccan-born teenager believed to have been the driver.
His brother's ID was used to rent up to three vans, including the one in the attack, but he has since handed himself into police and denied any involvement.
Oukabir fled on foot, but it is unclear if he joined the Cambrils attack which police are now linking to the one in Las Ramblas.
Police believe the terror cell lived in the resort town of Alcanar, 120 miles south of Barcelona, where a house-cum-bomb factory packed with gas canisters was destroyed in an explosion on Wednesday killing one man and injuring another.
Catalonia's interior minister, Joaquim Forn, tells Onda Cero radio that the suspects in Cambrils were driving in an Audi 3 and began plowing down people near the boardwalk.
A police car was damaged and an officer was among the six people injured in the second attack.
Forn says the suspects killed in a subsequent shootout with police were wearing fake bomb belts. He says the belts were very well made, and that authorities only determined they were phony after a controlled explosion.
Seven people including a policeman were injured in Cambrils on the Costa Dorada where the Jihadis' Audi A3 car overturned after ploughing through crowds on the seafront.
The terrorists bailed out clutching knives and were seen smiling and shouting taunts at police who shot them dead in the street at around 1am.
Tourists ran for their lives and hid on the beach or in seafront bars as gunshots rang out around them and holidaymaker Fitzroy Davies, from Wolverhampton, described how police gunned down one of the Cambrils attackers but he got up again and started 'ranting and raving'.
He said: 'He must have been on drugs. He was taunting, smiling, laughing and he carried on walking to the police, and then they gave it to him again, a couple more shots and then he fell to the ground'.
EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT THE BARCELONA ATTACK
  • 13 are dead and at least 100 are injured after an ISIS jihadi used a white Fiat van as a weapon on Los Ramblas, Barcelona at 4pm yesterday
  • The driver flees the scene after driving at 60mph along 500 yards of road swerving to hit men, women and children including dozens of tourists
  • Fugitive Moussa Oukabir, an 18-year-old Moroccan-born teenager, is Europe's most wanted man and is believed to have been the driver of the van
  • He may have rented up to three vehicles using his brother Driss' ID and his 28-year-old older sibling has since handed himself in to police and is among three suspects arrested
  • At 1am a second terror attack takes place in Cambrils, a seaside resort around 70 miles from Barcelona. An Audi A3 with five jihadis injures seven including a police officer as they plough through crowds. Their car turns over and they bail out with knives before being shot dead by police in the street
  • Police say a house in Alcanar, further along the Costa Dorada from Barcelona, exploded in Wednesday killing one. They say it was packed with gas canisters and contained maps of Barcelona and is now understood to be the terror cell's headquarters and bomb factory;
  • A man was shot dead in the town of Sant Just Desvern close to Barcelona after he drove at a road block but police now believe he was a not a terrorist;
  • ISIS have claimed responsibility for the attacks, which are strikingly similar to attacks in London, Berlin, Stockholm and Nice, where rented vehicles were used as weapons

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