French police have now detained five people in connection with the deadly attack. But the statement quoting a security member of the group said the man was following calls from ISIS to target nationals of countries fighting it.
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There was no mention of precise orders, or even of Laouaiej-Bouhlel’s allegiance.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, asked on Friday if he could confirm the attacker’s motives were linked to jihadism, said: “No”.
As we reported, French authorities had said Bouhlel was known to police as a petty criminal, but had never been the subject of any kind of screening by intelligence services. Where the cash came from is a mystery as Bouhlel has been unemployed for several months, leading to suspicions it could have come from an Islamic terrorist group.
“Kill the infidel, whether he’s a civilian or a soldier”, al-Adnani’s statement said.
A French government official suggested that the suspect may have adopted an extremist ideology recently. He didn’t fast or keep Ramadan. He did not transmit a photograph of himself with an Islamic State flag, like Yassine Salhi – also a delivery driver – who beheaded his boss near Lyon 13 months ago.
Bouhlel was shot dead by police in Thursday’s attack.
An inhabitant of the high-rise building where Laouaiej-Bouhlel had lived with his family said he was unstable. The father of three was said to have been depressed after his marriage fell apart and he got estranged from his wife.
The chronology of Bouhlel’s last night is still being pieced together.
In March he was sentenced to six months of probation for throwing a wooden pallet on a person after a auto accident. He should have done six months in prison. “When you have a 19-ton truck, not much is going to stop it – whether a barrier, an officer or a tape line”, he said.
A neighbor of truck driver Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel in Nice says she often crossed paths with the man – and said he struck her as odd and unpleasant. The bank had refused him a loan, and he couldn’t meet alimony payments.
“What I see on a more global trend is less emphasis on the statehood and governance model”, he said.
Former neighbours and relatives there expressed shock at the Nice attack, describing Bouhlel as sporty, uninterested in religion and from a regular family. “We forgot. We forgot because the Euro went well”, Nathalie Goulet, a senator who headed a commission investigating jihadi recruitment networks, told the AP.
Laouaiej-Bouhlel may have been what French experts call a “hybrid terrorist” – mentally unhinged and stimulated by Islamist rhetoric.
In January, on the anniversary of the mass shootings at the office of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, a man carrying the identity card of a Moroccan national was killed in Paris as he tried to storm a police station armed with a meat cleaver and a fake suicide belt.
In December 2014, a half-Algerian, half-Moroccan man ran over 13 pedestrians in Dijon, shouting “Allahu Akbar” at the wheel of his vehicle. At least 84 people, including children, were killed and dozens of others were injured.
Accor Hotels led losers on the Paris market in shedding 3 percent as the French tourism industry fretted at the latest in a slew of recent attacks, while transport firms and luxury goods makers also fell back. He swerved around a police barrier blocking the Promenade des Anglais just next to a children’s hospital, then sped through the crowds, leaving carnage in his path.
Meanwhile, Nice’s residents are reeling from the attack, as Eleanor reports. His thoughts turned immediately to his 14-year-old daughter, who had left his side shortly before the attack.
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French authorities said they were checking the claim. Police found him dead in the passenger seat.
