A senior source said last night that the man had deteriorated.
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At Nice’s Pasteur hospital, medical staff were treating large numbers of injuries. He is said to have emigrated from Ireland.
According to The Independent, police sources in Nice said the attacker could’ve gotten further than two kilometers (killing more people in the process) had the fearless man not taken action.
He said the dog had led them to safety, to a hotel where the manager told them to go into one of its rooms. We have particular concerns for the welfare of one Irish citizen, which we are following up urgently.
French authorities were still trying to determine whether the 31-year-old Tunisian driver of the vehicle had acted alone or with accomplices, and whether his motives were connected to radical Islam.
Police secure the crime scene on Promenade des Anglais on Friday. “An individual who took a truck and murdered people with it”. Bouhele was shot dead by police.
Nice is the site of the third major attack on French soil in 19 months, after 149 people were killed in terrorist attacks past year.
Speaking outside his home in Msaken, eastern Tunisia, the attacker’s father said he had suffered from depression and had “no links” to religion.
When police closed in, handguns drawn, El Shafei said Bouhlel opened fire. Bouhlel, a truck driver, was easily able to drive around police fences blocking Nice’s famous Promenade des Anglais before jamming on the accelerator and zigzagging his way through the crowds in a method that seemed calculated to generate maximum bloodshed. In March, he was given a six-month suspended sentence by a Nice court for a road-rage incident.
The weapon used was a plank of wood against another driver after a traffic accident.
James Kelly, who lived in a village near Nice for more than two years with his wife Jackie until last year, said he was devastated by the news.
Amid the expressions of solidarity from foreign leaders, the words from German President Joachim Gauck were especially on point. Such attacks could be done in “the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, Holland” and other countries sympathetic to Israel, it said.
Bouhlel’s friend said she felt shocked he could commit such a terrifying act.
After holding a crisis meeting and defence council, Hollande said France would continue to deploy exceptional measures.
He said the Philippine government joins the world in grieving for the violent attack.
He tweeted: “A sickening and terrible attack in Nice. Because it is a celebration of freedom”, he said. “They brought water for the injured and towels, which they placed on those for whom there was no more hope”. “All who cherish democracy will stand with them in the knowledge that our values will ultimately prevail in the face of such savagery”.
“It is shocking that the people of France have yet again been visited by such horrific tragedy”.
A United States student, Nicolas Leslie, 20, was missing, the University of California at Berkeley said.
Bouhlel was “entirely unknown” to anti-terrorist units, the prosecutor said.
People gather around a makeshift memorial to pay their respects. Would-be terrorists would simply try to steal trucks or radicalize someone who has already received TWIC approval, he said.
“It is clear that we must do everything in order to fight against the scourge of terrorism”, President Francois Hollande said in the early hours of yesterday morning. In an all too familiar experience, flags were lowered to half-mast across France on Friday.
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A state of emergency was in place across France since November’s Paris attacks carried out by militants from the so-called Islamic State group, in which 130 people died. “It is all of France that is under the threat of Islamist terrorism”. “France is a great country, and a great democracy, that will not allow itself to be destabilised”.
