The man who killed at least 84 people and injured more than 200 in Nice appears to have become radicalised very quickly, a French minister says, just hours after Islamic State seemed to claim responsibility for the attack.
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Ahead of the claim by Islamic State, the militant Islamist group which grabbed control of swathes of Iraq and Syria but which is now under military pressure from forces opposed to it, French officials had not disclosed any direct evidence linking Bouhlel with the jihadism.
Police are trying to piece together Bouhlel’s terror network as they questioned five suspected associates after raids across Nice.
Bouhlel, a resident of Nice, was born in Tunisia but had a permit to live and work in France. France, on Saturday, began a three-day mourning period for the victims of the deadly attack claimed by the Islamic State group, also called ISIS.
However Bernard Cazeneuve has defended his country’s security efforts amid the growing death count by insisting France is facing a “new kind of attack” which highlighted the “extreme difficulty of the anti-terrorism fight”.
Neighbours described the attacker, who worked as a delivery man, as a loner who never responded to their greetings.
Cazeneuve pointed out that the Tunisian perpetrator, identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, used a new method to carry out his crime.
Two days after the atrocity, many families are still hunting for missing loved ones, going from hospital to hospital in an effort to find people who’ve disappeared in the chaos of the truck’s rampage Officials said 202 people had been wounded in the attack, with 25 of them on life support as of late Friday.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, drove a 19-ton truck nearly a mile through revelers on Promenade des Anglais to watch the Bastille Day fireworks on the Mediterranean city’s waterfront Thursday.
Two people – a man and woman – were also detained on suspicion of the Bastille Day terrorist attack.
His estranged wife was reportedly among those taken into custody Friday morning. An argument ensued, with other passers-by saying that his family deserved respect.
“My brother had psychological problems, and we have given the police documents showing that he had been seeing psychologists for several years”, Rabeb Bouhlel, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s sister, told Reuters.
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Speaking to reporters in Nice on Sunday, Touraine said while scores of people who were hospitalized have been released, some may need further medical treatment as their injuries heal. He was killed by police after ramming his truck through crowds on Nice’s famed seafront after a holiday fireworks display Thursday night.
