On Saturday, the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, claimed responsibility for the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, that killed 84 people and wounded 200, according to the Associated Press.
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Officers arrested three people in Nice early on Saturday – and one on Friday night – in connection with the probe into the horrific incident when a truck rammed into crowds in the Riviera city.
French and other worldwide news outlets quoted the statement, posted on a Telegram social media account tied Amaq, as saying the attacker “carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of states that are part of the coalition fighting Islamic State”.
Police said those arrested were all males and not related to the driver of the truck, 31-year old Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel but were friends of the Tunisian-born migrant. Social media accounts that usually support IS have been gloating over the attack, the third terrorist massacre in France since January a year ago, but none mentioned the man’s name before authorities released it.
Reports published in the name of two IS media outlets said that the perpetrator was one of the group’s “soldiers”, although they did not mention whether there had been any prior coordination with the group. Authorities had been working to find out whether his motives were indeed connected to radical Islam.
Women comfort each other next to tributes on the Promenade des Anglais on Saturday in Nice, France.
It is as yet unclear if Lahouaiej Bouhlel acted alone.
They are set to face a judge but it has not been made clear when they will. Police were also unable to say if the men had been charged with any offences.
The Police however, said he had no known connection to jihadist groups.
A Reuters reporter saw about 40 elite police raid a small apartment near the central station, where one individual was arrested.
The arrests, which came on top of two on Friday including the attacker’s wife, concerned the attacker’s “close entourage”, the sources said.
But Bouhlel was “entirely unknown” to French intelligence authorities and wasn’t on any of their lists of at-risk individuals, French prosecutors said.
People mourn near the scene of an attack in Nice, France.
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“Each time he had a crisis, we took him to the doctor who gave him medication”, Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej Bouhlel told BFM television.
