“We are now confronted with individuals open to IS’s message to engage in extremely violent actions without necessarily having been trained or having the weapons to carry out a mass (casualty) attack”, Cazeneuve said earlier.
Advertisement
“Afterward, people will always say that we should have done things differently”. But his computer and phone showed online searches relating to IS and other jihadi groups.
However, French authorities were yet to produce any evidence Lahouaiej Bouhlel had any links to Islamic State.
“The guy didn’t observe Ramadan, the minimum to be considered a good Muslim”, he said, referring to the Muslim fasting month that ended late June.
There were angry scenes as boos broke out and people shouted at Manuel Valls when he arrived at the Monument du Centenaire ahead of a minute’s silence.
Some in the crowd told CNN they felt the government had failed to provide enough security to stop the attack.
After visiting victims in hospital in Nice, Hollande says the death toll has reached 84 and that about 50 are still fighting for their lives.
“I tried to roll myself into a ball, so the people wouldn’t crush me, but I was still hit in the stomach and leg”, she said. Despite committing five crimes, he was never imprisoned for any length of time nor deported from France.
ISIS claimed in a statement Saturday morning that it was responsible for the deadly truck attack by Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old French-Tunisian citizen and Nice resident who was killed by police during the rampage.
The driver’s uncle, Sadok Bouhlel, told The Associated Press that given Bouhlel’s family problems – he was estranged from his wife and three children – the Algerian “found in Mohamed an easy prey”. The local children’s hospital said of the 30 minors brought for treatment after the attack, two had died, one was in critical condition, and three were on artificial respiration.
“What you see is that people pull together and communities become more bonded against the attacks”, he said, predicting that the same phenomenon could happen in France.
He had scouted out the promenade before the attack, CCTV footage showed, and he is said to have sent texts to possible accomplices asking for more weapons. Also in the truck with him were a driving licence and a bank card.
Despite the Vall’s assertion that there wasn’t much that could have been done to prevent the Nice attack, all the facts state otherwise.
The Islamic State group said Saturday that the attacker was one of its “soldiers”, the first claim of responsibility.
Despite his criminal record, Bouhlel was not on the radar for any kind of terror threat. “That last day he said he was in Nice with his European friends to celebrate the national holiday”, Bouhlel’s brother Jabeur told Reuters in their native Tunisia.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that the challenge of finding and stopping people like Bouhlel was “worse than the needle in the haystack”.
The family is not releasing the photo to the media.
Neighbors described the father of three as a volatile man, prone to drinking and womanizing, who was in the process of getting a divorce.
Feelings are raw. numerous dead and injured were children watching a fireworks display with their families, and a sign posted around town demonstrates a strong feeling of solidarity, calling for blood donations and stuffed animals for injured children.
“This is a big step back here”.
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.
The Union flag is among the national flags to fly at half-mast, while messages from British holidaymakers sit alongside those of mourners from other countries on the makeshift memorials along the promenade. No major attacks occurred during the event.
About 85 people are still hospitalized in the wake of Thursday’s attack, with 29 patients in intensive care, said Marisol Touraine, French minister of social affairs and health. Life has to remain normal.
Advertisement
This took place only eight months after the devastating November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris which killed 130 people.
