On social media, supporters of militant group Islamic State celebrated the high death toll and posted a series of images, one showing a beach purporting to be that of Nice with white stones arranged to read “IS is here to stay” in Arabic.
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The group said the attacker had responded to calls by ISIS leadership to target citizens of the worldwide coalition now carrying out air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq.
A vigil took place at Nice Cathedral on Friday night and mourners also gathered at a makeshift memorial amid a visible police presence near the promenade, which is closed to the public. “He would become angry and he shouted. he would break anything he saw in front of him”, Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej-Bouhlel said in Tunisia.
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.
NICE, FRANCE – JULY 16: The name of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel is seen on the intercom of his apartment building in Nice, France. A 70-year-old Algerian woman who was visiting her daughter in Nice was also killed, said the foreign ministry’s spokesman.
Another person was also detained, as well as the attacker’s ex-wife, bringing the total arrests to five.
“My brother had psychological problems, and we have given the police documents showing that he had been seeing psychologists for several years”, Rabeb Bouhlel, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s sister, told Reuters.
French detectives are still trying to piece together the circumstances after a terrorist deliberately drove a lorry into revellers enjoying a fireworks display on the Promenade des Anglais, before being fatally wounded in a stand-off with armed police.
Hollande described the incident as a “terrorist attack” in a sombre televised address, adding that “France was struck on its national day. the symbol of freedom”.
Thursday night’s attack plunged France into new grief and fear just eight months after gunmen killed 130 people in Paris. This enables those planning attacks in the country to recruit among personnel already involved in petty or violent crime, as well as acquire weapons and potential safe havens.
“It seems that he was radicalised very quickly – in any case these are the elements that have come up from the testimony of the people around him”, Cazeneuve said. In addition, Prime Minister Manuel Valls stated, after the November 13th attacks, that intelligence services are tasked with monitoring approximately 10,000 suspects for their support and ideological sympathies in regard to Middle East-based extremist groups.
The ministry said two Romanians were among the injured on Nice’s seaside boulevard.
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The driver’s ex-wife was being questioned on Friday. Bouhlel was later shot dead by two police officers inside the truck’s cabin.
