The claim – circulated on social media by a news outlet affiliated with the group – didn’t name Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the 31-year-old Tunisian who authorities say was behind the wheel as his truck crashed into a crowd of revelers at a fireworks display on Thursday.
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He is said to have pulled a gun from the cab as part of the premeditated attack before being shot dead by police, with people fleeing into the sea in a bid to escape.
The father of the two victims has received psychological counselling, according to reports. The Bastille Day date was likely no coincidence, but rather a time chosen to maximize casualties and wound the very fabric of French identity.
French officials have identified Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel as the man driving the truck used to mow down several dozen people celebrating Bastille day in Nice, France.
These were his first on-camera remarks since the terror attack in Nice on Thursday evening that has left 84 people dead and some 50 people “between life and death”.
They said the man had hurled himself into the cab when the 20 tonne truck was held up by an obstruction.
Police sources told Reuters the arrests on Saturday concerned the attacker’s “close entourage” and were made in two different areas of Nice.
The country is still reeling from the November 13 attacks that killed 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall, Paris restaurants and cafes, and the national stadium, and a separate January 2015 iParis attack that targeted journalists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and Jews at a kosher supermarket.
“French people are strong, they’re going to keep getting out, partying, drinking, enjoying life but it’s still like really, really heavy and hard to accept that it keeps going and it’s like it doesn’t feel like it’s going to stop any day”, he said. “They had to stay there for a couple of hours, but people wouldn’t even come out – they were so frightened – until the police came and said it was OK to come out”, he said.
“(The investigation) will try to determine whether he benefited from accomplices”, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.
President Hollande also stated that the country’s state of emergency has been extended three months from its previously declared end date of July 26, and that the borders of France will be protected by military reserves.
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Birmingham City Council also had a French flag flying at half mast today following the suspected ISIS attack.
