As France mourned for the victims of another apparent terror attack, Hollande was defiant as he said the country remained under the threat of Islamic State.
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Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native, told The Associated Press that he saw a truck drive into the crowd.
Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a driver and delivery man, had three children but had separated from his wife, who was taken into police custody on Friday, Mr Molins said.
Australia has mourned the victims of the Nice terror attack with candlelight vigils and illuminated landmarks signalling the nation’s solidarity with France.
The Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, said the attack was “probably linked to radical Islam in one way or another”, echoing President Francois Hollande’s declaration the attack was of “an undeniable terrorist nature”. French officials have said the attack bore all the hallmarks of a terrorist act, and authorities strongly suspect the Islamic State may have played a role in the killings, either by directly ordering the attack or by inspiring the killer to act on his own through its online propaganda and recruitment.
A woman puts flowers near the scene where a truck mowed through revelers in Nice, southern France, July 15, 2016. He said he had requested that the police presence be reinforced in Nice ahead of the display but was told there was no need.
French investigating police carry evidence bags after they conducted a search the day after a truck drove into a crowd of people who were celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France.
Afterwards he said he ran towards the beach with others, fearing the driver, who was then shot by police, would detonate the lorry.
VOA producer Linda Ringe was staying in a hotel overlooking the Promenade des Anglais where the attack took place.
“I never saw him wearing a jellabah”, Gacem added.
A third neighbor told the Telegraph that Bouhlel lives alone and mostly kept to himself, but was rude in the few interactions he had with his street-mates.
Less than two weeks before a state of emergency was set to expire in France, Thursday’s deadly attack in Nice propelled President Francois Hollande to extend the measure for an additional three months, leaving many critics questioning the effectiveness of a state of emergency and the dangers it poses to civil liberties.
“Usually when there’s music and French people, there’s dancing”, said Brigitte Jensen, honorary consul of France in Central Florida and head of the French American Business Council of Orlando, who helped organize the event at Urbain 40 in the Dr. Phillips neighborhood. “We are facing a war that terrorism has brought to us”.
Hollande spoke yesterday with several world leaders including US President Barack Obama, who vowed to stand united with US allies and destroy terrorist networks.
But Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve cautioned it was too early to confirm any links to extremism.
The attack targeted Bastille Day, the day that commemorates the start of the French Revolution.
Still, he could have felt inspired by calls from extremist groups to carry out acts of murder in France, said Molins.
French authorities detained five people Saturday.
Such attacks are hard to anticipate or prevent, however, and the truth is that we can expect them to happen again despite the best efforts of national and worldwide security forces. Her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, called the attack “horrible”. He said he watched as the truck was chased by police officers. The truck’s front windshield was riddled with bullets, Bouhlel’s body slumped inside. A series of attacks in recent years have shown that radical jihadi networks are seemingly able to obtain guns, and even heavier automatic weapons, easily in France.
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A coordinated attack in Paris on November 13 killed at least 130 people in a strike claimed by Islamic State, and a series of attacks in January 2015 that began with an assault on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo killed 17 people.
