France on Saturday began three days of national mourning in homage to the victims although that didn’t stop politicians from sniping at each other over who bore responsibility for the failing to stop the attack.
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The site is also becoming a platform for anger at the attacker.
A report in the Nice Matin newspaper said investigators had found no radical material in his flat, although they were still looking at his telephone and computer.
Italy’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor, Franco Roberti, said he had no knowledge about the reported French request to see if the attacker had an accomplice in Puglia.
But, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel did not make a public pledge of allegiance to IS and had to evident logistical help from the organization.
“It seems he was radicalized very quickly”, he said.
IS has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Paris prosecutor’s office says that five people are in custody following the deadly truck attack in the French resort city of Nice.
The prosecutor spoke hours after thousands of people massed on the waterfront promenade where the attack took place for a moment of silence.
A spokeswoman for the Nice paediatric hospital said 16 bodies had not yet been identified.
The university said the Federal Bureau of Investigation informed school officials that the body of 20-year-old Nicolas Leslie of Del Mar in the San Diego area had been identified. She declined to discuss the injuries saying that the family wants to protect Stratton’s privacy.
Two more people, a man and a woman close to Bouhlel, were arrested in Nice early on Sunday and another person in the afternoon.
“A complete stranger stayed with her in the immediate stages after she was injured and went in the ambulance”.
When asked why so many French people were buying guns and becoming interested in joining the gun club, one resident told Miller, “They’re getting ready for a war”.
Last Thursday, Bouhlel drove a heavy truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice. Numerous dead and 308 injured were children. Buildings stood silent across the country.
A lawyer for one of those detained by police said his client hadn’t recognized any signs of radicalism in Bouhlel. Friends and family said he had not been an observant Muslim in the past.
Sadok Bouhlel spoke in the driver’s hometown of Msaken, Tunisia.
“I saw him four times a day”, said Jasmine Corman, who has lived in the building for six months.
The French government is defending its efforts to fight Islamic State extremists overseas and at home, announcing new airstrikes against their strongholds in the past two days.
French President Francois Hollande met his defense and security chiefs and cabinet ministers as political and media criticism mounted over security failings after the third major attack in France in 18 months.
Presidential contender and former prime minister Alain Juppe said Friday that the latest carnage could have been prevented if “all measures” had been taken.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced he would call up 12,000 police reserves in addition to more than 120,000 police and soldiers already deployed around the country “because of the terrorist threat”.
After crisis talks in Paris, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian recalled that IS had recently repeated calls to supporters to “directly attack the French, Americans, wherever they are and by whatever means”. French warplanes have been involved in the operation in Iraq and to a lesser degree in Syria.
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It is the fourth time the security measures have been extended since Islamic State jihadists struck Paris in November, killing 130 people at restaurants, a concert hall and the national stadium. Whether those were sufficient is part of the investigation now being conducted, he said.
