At least 80 people were killed when a truck ploughed into a crowd in the French resort of Nice in a “terrorist” attack on revellers watching a Bastille Day fireworks display. Couture-Rouleau called a police emergency line to dedicate his attack to the cause of jihad.
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The was truck loaded with weapons and hand grenades drove onto a sidewalk for more than a mile, plowing through Bastille Day revelers. Molina said her teenage son witnessed the carnage.
The driver of the vehicle has been identified as 31-year-old man of dual French-Tunisian nationality.
Nice-Matin posted photographs of the truck, its windshield starred by a score of bullets and its radiator grille destroyed.
Hollande claimed the attack was terror related.
“We condemn such an attack, maybe a terrorist attack, but such an attack in France again”, he said.
Hollande rushed to Nice, 690 kilometers (490 miles) south of Paris, to offer his condolences after the emergency meeting.
The gunman jumped out of the truck after ploughing through the pedestrians and began opening fire, witnesses said.
Hollande confirmed that 77 people, including some children, were killed when the truck drove through the crowds who had just watched a fireworks display on seafront in the city.
“Only eight months ago we mourned for the victims of terrorist attacks in Paris”.
The driver had fired a pistol several times before being shot dead by police, regional chief Christian Estrosi said.
– US Secretary of State John Kerry, who had been in Paris earlier in the day for a Bastille Day parade, said: “The United States will continue to stand firmly with the French people during this time of tragedy.
People were screaming at me in French but I didn’t understand”, she said.
“Police are flooding the streets, including anti-terrorism officers. I won’t forget the look of this policewoman who intercepted the killer”.
Tiny Kuwait faced an Islamic State group suicide attack a year ago during Ramadan at a Shiite mosque which killed at least 27 people and wounded 227.
On a day where Australians marched alongside their French counterparts this cruel attack has struck innocents celebrating their national day.
The driver was shot dead after the attack.
“There was a massive panic there must have been somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 people on the Promenade des Anglais”.
They died in what French officials say they are investigating as a likely terrorist attack.
‘Attacks aren’t prepared alone.
“Tragic paradox that the subject of Nice attack was the people celebrating liberty, equality and fraternity”, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Twitter. ‘There is a chain of complicity.
I hope the injured recover soon. The world’s most popular social networking site also activated its Safety Check for the city, which alerts friends and families that its users are safe and accounted for when they check in online.
“A fraction of a second later, an enormous white truck came along at a insane speed, turning the wheel to mow down the maximum number of people”, he wrote in an online account.
On video footage, one person could be heard yelling, “Help my mother, please!” A pink girl’s bicycle was overturned by the side of the road.
He also said France would strengthen its role in Iraq and Syria, where it is part of the worldwide coalition fighting ISIS jihadists.
President Barack Obama said the U.S. stood “in solidarity and partnership with France, our oldest ally”.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today strongly condemned the deadly truck attack in France terming it as a “mindless act of violence”. “All of France is under the threat of Islamic terrorists”.
