Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel is seen giving the finger while at the steering wheel of the truck he used to kill 84 people in Nice, in the latest pictures to emerge of the 31-year-old Tunisian.
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People stand near the house in Msaken, Tunisia, of the man who drove a heavy truck into crowds in the French city of Nice killing at least 84 people.
IS said the attacker was acting in response to its calls to target civilians in countries that are part of the coalition ranged against it.
Eighty-five people are still in hospital being treated for their injuries, 18 of whom remain in a life-threatening condition, the French health minister said.
Many are also angry at French police and authorities for not preventing the deadly attack, even though France was under a state of emergency imposed after Islamic State attacks previous year in Paris.
In Nice, many people were still desperately looking for news of their loved ones among the dead and 121 still hospitalised.
France imposed emergency rule after the November 13 attacks carried by Islamist militants that claimed the lives of 130 people in Paris and left scores of other wounded.
Manuel Valls, in an interview published in French media, said the Islamic State group “is encouraging individuals unknown to our services to stage attacks”. He said he had requested that the police presence be reinforced in Nice ahead of the fireworks display but was told there was no need.
According to Molins, the attacker drank alcohol, ate pork, took drugs and engaged in “unbridled sexual activity”.
Italy’s anti-terror police and magistrates opened the probe at the request of French authorities, who had Bouhlel’s phone records, the sources said.
The veracity of the group’s claim couldn’t immediately be determined, but what is known so far about Bouhlel thus far suggests a troubled, angry man with little interest in the group’s ultra-puritanical brand of Islam.
Bernard Cazeneuve told France’s RTL radio that while Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a Tunisian living in Nice, may have been inspired by the terrorist network any “links for now have not been established by the investigation”.
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“Are you defending him?” the man said, incredulously.
