Cook, who was traveling in Europe and came to Nice to assist Stratton, said a French man aided Stratton in the critical period after the attack.
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It’s also unclear whether Bouhlel, who was shot dead by police Thursday night, had been acting alone.
It said that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel “carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of states fighting Islamic State”.
The Amaq news agency affiliated with the militant Islamist group said that Bouhlel “was one of the soldiers of Islamic State”.
The veracity of the group’s claim couldn’t immediately be determined, but French officials didn’t dispute it.
He was known to police because of allegations of threats, violence and thefts over the past six years, and he was given a suspended six-month prison sentence this year after being convicted of violence with a weapon, authorities said.
Neighbors described the attacker as volatile, prone to drinking and womanizing.
Authorities say Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a Tunisian living in Nice, had become recently and rapidly radicalized.
Molins described a quick radicalization of a man who in the past hadn’t been religious.
The attack by delivery man Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel at peak holiday time on the Riviera plunged France into new grief and fear, just eight months after jihadist gunmen killed 130 people in Paris. He said Bouhlel’s family problems – he was estranged from his wife and three children – made him easy prey for the Algerian recruiter.
But on the city’s famed Promenade des Anglais, passers-by piled garbage on the bloodstained spot where Bouhlel was killed.
Meanwhile in Nice, the seaside boulevard that was scene of the brutal attack reopened to traffic on Saturday as makeshift memorials were set up near one end of the avenue. Friends and family said he had not been an observant Muslim in the past.
Pradal said the attack in Nice, which follows two mass killings by Islamic extremists in Paris previous year, shows that his city represents a particular target for extremists because of its long history as a Mediterranean melting pot that is tolerant of all nationalities and religions.
About 85 people remained hospitalized Sunday, and of those, 18 including a child were still in life-threatening condition, Health Minister Marisol Touraine told reporters on a visit to the city.
The July 14 carnage in the southern city of Nice has shaken and angered a country still reeling from the November 13 attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people at a concert hall, restaurants and cafes, and the national stadium, and a separate January 2015 Paris attack that targeted journalists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and Jews at a kosher supermarket. The grandson, one of the dead, was a high school teacher at Lycee de Recollets.
France held a moment of silence Monday to remember the victims. He said he had asked that police be reinforced in Nice ahead of the fireworks display but was told that there was no need. Also in the truck with him were a driving licence and a bank card.
Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll warned against attempts to divide the country, calling for “unity and cohesion”.
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France is facing a general election next year, and the deeply unpopular Hollande is facing multiple challengers, from within his own Socialist Party, from the right-wing Republicans and from the far-right National Front.
