According to The Independent, police sources in Nice confirmed that the deadly two-kilometre charge of the truck might have continued for longer had it not been for the courage of the member of the public.
Advertisement
The children are part of the 84 killed and 202 people wounded when a local man whom police identified as delivery driver Mohamed Bouhlel drove a huge truck through the holiday crowd Thursday night before police shot him dead.
Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, smashed a 19-tonne truck into a mass of people as the traditional July 14 national day fireworks celebration was ending in the French Riviera city.
Al-Bayan warned that Western countries “will not be spared from the blows of the mujahideen” no matter how much they increase their security measures.
Bill Rapp, a former reporter in Springfield who now lives in the Nice neighborhood where the attack took place, had watched the fireworks from a park a short distance away because he does not like being in crowds.
President Obama repeated his goal to destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) after Thursday’s terror attack in Nice, France and said that people can’t be deterred from living their lives.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the evening news that Bouhlel was “one way or another” linked to radical Islam.
A neighbour of Bouhlel’s said he did not believe he was involved with Islamic State.
The arrests concerned the attacker’s “close entourage”, the sources said, and were made in two different areas of Nice.
“It is unknown whether he had any links to terrorists”, prosecutor Francois Molins, said at a press conference.
“We are also shocked”, he said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, including Islamic State. France is heading into elections next year, and the deeply unpopular President Francois Hollande is facing multiple challengers, from within his own Socialist Party, from the right-wing Republicans and from the far-right National Front.
A nephew of Bouhlel, Ibrahim, said his uncle had called three days ago saying he was preparing a trip back for a family party.
The 31-year old Tunisian, who lived locally, zigzagged through a Bastille Day crowd for almost two kilometres on the waterfront of the French Riviera city on Thursday night – it was eventually stopped when police shot dead the driver.
Advertisement
The Tour de France continued in a low-key but defiant mood under heightened security on Friday, with riders, spectators and race officials observing a minute’s silence for the scores of victims of the Bastille Day attack in Nice.
