The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the truck attack that killed 84 people during Thursday’s national holiday.
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After crisis talks in Paris, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian noted that IS had recently repeated calls for supporters to “directly attack the French, Americans, wherever they are and by whatever means”.
Candles burned late into the night as crowds gathered once again in memory of those killed and injured.
France’s interior minister is ordering up reserve forces and increasing security measures across the country “because of the terrorist threat” following deadly attacks on a Bastille Day celebration in Nice.
The operational reserve is now made up of 12,000 volunteers, 9,000 of whom are within the paramilitary police and 3,000 in the regular police force, said Cazeneuve.
Duterte’s statement was echoed by the Catholic Church, which branded the attack “a dastardly act”.
“I’ve always said the truth regarding terrorism: there is an ongoing war, there will be more attacks”.
Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, ploughed a 19-tonne truck into a crowd of people who had been watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city, killing 84 and injuring 200. It’s also unclear whether or not Bouhlel, who was shot dead by police that night, had been acting alone.
NICE, France – The Islamic State claimed Saturday that the man who attacked the seaside city of Nice was one of the group’s “soldiers”. It didn’t name Bouhlel, but the statement, quoting an IS security member, said he was following IS calls to target citizens of the countries fighting the extremists.
Neighbors described the attacker as a loner who never responded to their greetings. His own father, in Tunisia, said his son did not pray or fast for Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.
“It seems he was radicalized very quickly”, he said.
IS also claimed responsibility for the November 13 attacks which killed 130 people in Paris, while gunmen in January 2015 attacks on the Charlie Hebdo weekly and a Jewish supermarket were linked to both IS and Al-Qaeda. But neighbors in the Nice neighborhood where the Bouhlel used to live told The Associated Press that his estranged wife had been taken away Friday by police.
As France began three days of national mourning Saturday, Nice’s seaside Promenade des Anglais slowly and painfully came back to life.
“You would have needed a wall of cement to stop him”, he said. The suffering is far from over. Two days after the atrocity, some families were still hunting for missing loved ones, going from hospital to hospital to find relatives who had disappeared in the bloody chaos of the truck’s rampage.
Officials said 202 people had been wounded in the attack, including many children.
The French health ministry said five children and 21 adults were still fighting for their lives in a critical condition in hospital and were among 121 people still hospitalised. The grandson, one of the dead, was a high school teacher at Lycee de Recollets. “We join the family in their enormous pain and distress”.
French politician Christian Estrosi, head of the regional council and member of the opposition Republicans, charged that his request for extra Bastille Day security was ignored.
“When the interior minister says there were enough police, it constitutes a blatant lie”, he told i-Tele television. But government spokesman Stephane Le Foll slammed Juppe’s comments, saying there were more than 185 police, gendarmes and soldiers on the ground, as well as municipal police and a vast network of surveillance cameras. Still, the message was heard, prompting the security announcement later from Cazeneuve.
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France is heading into elections next year, and the deeply unpopular French President Francois Hollande is facing challenges from within his party and from right-wing Republicans and the far-right National Front.
