Amaq quoted an IS security source as saying one of its “soldiers” carried out Thursday’s carnage “in response to calls to target nations of coalition states that are fighting (IS)”.
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The 31-year old Tunisian driver of the truck drove at a Bastille Day crowd on the waterfront of the French Riveria city on Thursday night.
With at least 84 people dead, including 10 children, and over 50 in critical condition, the attack is the second mass-casualty event in France in eight months.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the evening news that Bouhlel was “one way or another” linked to radical Islam.
One Russian citizens and one Russian expatriate were killed in a terrorist attack in France’s Nice, two more Russian nationals are reported missing, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday citing preliminary information.
In an address to the nation, French President Francois Holland said the attack was done “to satisfy the cruelty of an individual and maybe a group”.
A man covered with a towel was apprehended by French police this morning as the investigation continued two days after the savage attack on the Promenade des Anglais.
As the truck mowed down the crowd, Ms. Nouvel crouched on the ground, along with many other people, she said.
The magnate Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, has on several occasions called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, while this week the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, said that everyone who strictly follows Islamic sharia law should be investigated.
She said the embassy was working on a number of “cases of concern” but there was no confirmation from the French authorities about the nationality or identity of the victims.
“We are also shocked”, he said. He drove along the promenade for two kilometers (1.2 miles), and was shot dead by police after firing repeatedly on three policemen.
Msaken, a commercial town about 120 km (75 miles) south of Tunis, has strong links to Nice through emigration. Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said that Bouhlel was a divorced father of three, and that his ex-wife had been taken into custody for questioning. They are also using the public perception that an attack like this seems to fit Islamic State. “His mother would ask him – ‘why do you never speak?’ and he would reply ‘because I don’t want to talk.’ “He did not know people, he never sent us presents, he never said hello”.
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Marilyn Semino, a teacher from Toulouse who was leading the group of 52 French students, said: “I made a flower with a handkerchief as a tribute because I had nothing else to give”.
