French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the evening news that Bouhlel was “one way or another” linked to radical Islam.
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“Then I checked Twitter and found out that a truck had hit many people”, said the 25-year-old, who has been in Nice since 2011.
Some 30,000 people had thronged the Promenade Des Anglais to watch a fireworks display with their friends and families on a night which turned to horror as the rampaging truck left mangled bodies strewn across the palm-fringed road.
AFP reporter Robert Holloway witnessed the white truck driving at speed into the crowd, causing “absolute chaos”.
“They asked us all to remain indoors and I was able to let two people in so they could have safe lodging”, she said.
If the first terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo was an unfortunate failure on the part of French security, the second in the Bataclan was a sign of systemic impotence.
President Francois Hollande has declared the attack was of “an undeniable terrorist nature”.
“We didn’t know if there was another truck, but there was no doubt in our minds this was a terrorist attack by someone who was deliberately out to kill large numbers of people”.
He is said to have pulled a gun from the cab of his lorry in the premeditated attack before being shot dead by police, with people fleeing into the sea in a bid to escape. Two U.S. citizens were confirmed killed in the attack.
Warning that the victim count was still preliminary, Molins said that among the 84 dead, 10 were children or adolescents.
A woman lays a flower in the street of Nice to pay tribute to the victims of the Bastille Day attack.
Tour de France observes moment of silence.
Thursday night’s events come roughly eight months after the attacks in Paris, where gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people. France has contributed to airstrikes in both countries, targeting the Islamic State group.
Investigators were building up a picture of Lahouaiej-Bouhlel; a man with a record of petty crime, but no known connection to terrorist groups.
Ibrahim Bouhlel, a nephew, said his uncle never had money problems, and had told relatives days ago that he was planning a trip back to Tunisia for a family party.
The truck’s windshield was punctured by a volley of bullets, possibly fired by police, but some witnesses said the driver opened fire before he set out on his fatal ride along a 2-kilometer stretch of pavement.
Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, born on January 31, 1985 in the Sousse suburb of Msaken, was married to a Franco-Tunisian resident of Nice.
His wife was arrested on Friday and taken for questioning, a police source said. A pistol and various fake weapons were discovered in the truck’s cabin, with a telephone and a computer later seized during a search at Bouhlel home. It’s also unclear whether or not he was acting alone. “I nearly stepped on a corpse, it was awful. It looked like a battlefield”, he said.
World leaders rushed to condemn the bloodshed, with US President Barack Obama blasting it as a “tragic and appalling” attack on freedom.
Though no group has claimed responsibility for the Nice attack, President Francois Hollande called it “undeniably terrorist in nature” and extended a state of emergency imposed after the November 13 assault on Paris nightspots that claimed 130 lives.
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“We will continue striking those who attack us on our own soil”, he said.
