Truck attacker killed 84 Frenchmen on Bastille Day

MNA Editorial Desk: A horrible face of mass killing continues as a truck attacker killed 84 Frenchmen on Bastille Day. A Tunisian truck driver on Friday night killed at least 84 people by plowing a truck into Bastille Day crowds.

Thursday night’s attack in the Riviera city of Nice plunged France into new grief and fear just eight months after gunmen killed 130 people in Paris.

However, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the truck attack in Nice, a news service affiliated with the jihadists said Saturday.

Amaq quoted an IS security source as saying one of its “soldiers” carried out Thursday’s carnage “in response to calls to target nations of coalition states that are fighting (IS)”.

The truck zigzagged along the city’s seafront Promenade des Anglais as a fireworks display marking the French national day ended. It dashed into families and friends listening to an orchestra or strolling above the Mediterranean beach towards the century-old grand Hotel Negresco.

At least 10 children were among the dead. Of the scores of injured, 25 were on life support. The driver, 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was shot dead by officers at the scene. He was known to police for petty crimes but was not on a watch list of suspected militants.

He had one criminal conviction, for road rage, and was sentenced to trial three months ago for flinging a wooden pallet at another driver.

“The investigation will try to determine whether he benefited from accomplices. It will also try to find out whether Mohamed Laouaiej Bouhlel had ties to Islamist terrorist organizations.”Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.

“Although yesterday’s attack has not been claimed, this sort of thing fits in perfectly with calls for murder from such terrorist organizations,” Molins added.

Bouhlel’s ex-wife was in police custody. He had three children. Police found one pistol and various fake weapons in his truck.

After being stopped by armed police, who fired bullets into the lorry’s windscreen, he exchanged fire with officers using a 7.65 pistol before being shot dead.

As hundreds remained in hospital – including 50 fighting for their lives in intensive care – investigators have been searching the home of Bouhlel in the Abattoirs area of Nice and carried out a controlled explosion on a white box van nearby.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the evening news that Bouhlel was “one way or another” linked to radical Islam. “Yes, it is a terrorist act and we shall see what links there are with terrorist organizations.”

New Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain must redouble its efforts to defeat “brutal” terrorist “murderers” after the “horrifying” attack, as she called a meeting of senior officials in the Government’s emergency Cobra committee.

As the United Nations issued a statement calling the latest “cowardly and barbaric”, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls tweeted, “The city of Nice has been hit by terrorism on the day of our national holiday. Immense pain, the country is in mourning. The French will face it.”

A State of Emergency imposed last year after almost 150 people were killed during attacks on Paris will be extended to July 26.