The Paris prosecutor’s office says that five people are in custody following the deadly truck attack in the French resort city of Nice.
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IS also claimed responsibility for the November 13 attacks which killed 130 people in Paris, while gunmen in January 2015 attacks on the Charlie Hebdo weekly and a Jewish supermarket were linked to both IS and Al-Qaeda.
In an open letter published on the Nice Matin newspaper’s website, regional council President Christian Estrosi – a member of France’s opposition Republicans – described his country’s current leadership as “incapable”, saying he’d requested that the police presence be reinforced in Nice ahead of the July 14 fireworks display that was attacked but was told there was no need.
Poland’s Foreign Ministry says that two Polish women have been killed in last week’s truck attack in the southern French city of Nice. Bouhlel’s estranged wife was arrested at her apartment Friday and released Sunday morning without charge, her attorney, Jean-Yves Garino, told CNN.
Speaking as France began three days of mourning, he said 31-year-old Lahouaiej-Bouhlel “had not been known to the intelligence services because he did not stand out.by being linked with radical Islamic ideology”.
As of Sunday no evidence had been produced to show how he underwent that rapid transformation from someone with no apparent interest in religion.
The media added that the detainees noticed that Bouhlel stopped drinking alcohol. “I have been looking for him for 48 hours”, he said.
“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.
Islamic State, which is under military pressure in its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds, considers France a key target given its military operations in the Middle East, and also because it is easier to strike than the United States.
France is also home to Europe’s biggest Muslim population, and has been accused by some critics of sowing racial, ethnic and religious discord through strict adherence to a culture that allows no place for religion in schools and civic life.
He had no record of making militant statements and was not known to the intelligence services, the minister said.
“Daesh gives unstable individuals an ideological kit that allows them to make sense of their acts. this is probably what happened in Nice’s case”, Valls said, referring to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
Cruickshank said “no country in the Western world is threatened more by jihadis and terrorism than France”. “It’s a hard thing to say, but other lives will be lost”.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve made the appeal for volunteers to boost the security service on Saturday as France reels from its third major Islamist attack in the past 18 months.
She told reporters that Bouhlil had a “fixated look in his eyes”. But Cazeneuve said that high security had been assured in the region – including at the Cannes Film Festival and the Nice Carnival.
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The interior minister had previously said that the truck driver “appear (ed) to have radicalised very quickly”. “He said there were 64 national policemen on duty. It’s false and the investigation will show it”.
