Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old delivery driver, was shot dead by police on Thursday night after careering along a packed sea-front promenade in Nice for about 2km, zigzagging in order to run over as many victims as possible. Neighbors told The Associated Press that the attacker’s estranged wife was among them.
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Crazed killer Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel sent a final, chilling text message moments before committing mass murder in Nice, France: “I have the material”.
Many in France are also angry at police and authorities for not preventing the deadly attack, even though France was under a state of emergency imposed after Islamic State attacks past year in Paris.
Cazeneuve said initial indications suggested Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, had been “radicalised very quickly” before the attack.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian noted that ISIS had recently repeated calls for supporters to “directly attack the French, Americans, wherever they are and by whatever means”.
All seven people taken in for questioning said Bouhlel was violent and unstable.
Two replica assault rifles and a dummy grenade were also found in the truck, which he rented a few days earlier and used for reconnaissance on the seafront on the two consecutive days before the attack. Four others arrested previously were still being held, but Bouhlel’s estranged wife was released without charge after being held since Friday. Many families in Nice were angry that they couldn’t find information about missing loved ones.
“We have no news, neither good nor bad”, said Johanna, a Lithuanian who was looking for her two friends, aged 20.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said only 35 bodies have been definitively identified so far.
About 85 people are still hospitalized in the wake of the attack, with 29 patients in intensive care, said Marisol Touraine, French minister of social affairs and health.
Despite several brushes with the law for petty crime, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had never appeared on the radar of intelligence services.
But quotes from French officials made it clear that such claims were little more than guesswork: The story reported that Prime Minister Manuel Valls “said the attacker in all likelihood had ties to radical Islamist circles”, citing Valls’ statement to French TV: “He is a terrorist probably linked to radical Islam one way or another”.
Cazeneuve described the massacre as a “a new kind of attack” which highlighted “the extreme difficulty of the anti-terrorism fight”.
France’s third major attack in the past 18 months has left the government fending off criticism over security failures and scrambling to reassure citizens about their safety.
France has stepped up its security measures further in the wake of the atrocity, but many in the city said they had always been used to a visible military presence.
“I want to call on all French patriots who wish to do so, to join this operational reserve”, said Cazeneuve of a force now made up of 12,000 volunteers aged between 17 and 30.
Islamic State, which is under military pressure in its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds, considers France a key target given its military operations in the Middle East, and also because it is easier to strike than the United States.
Hundreds of French jihadists have gone to fight alongside IS in Iraq and Syria.
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Jabeur said his brother had started calling home frequently in recent weeks, adding: “He spoke to me about the town of Msaken, about sport and boxing and how he was going to come back soon”.
