French President Francois Hollande called the event a
"terrorist" attack even thought no terror organization has yet claimed responsibility. Still, the Islamic State has called for Muslims to killed Americans and Frenchmen in any way possible, including plowing into them with cars.
A French newspaper reports: "We can confirm the identity of the driver of the truck that drove into the crowds
Tuesday night, according to our information. It is the owner of the identity card that was found in the truck by police. He is from Nice and is of Tunisian origin, aged 31, called Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel. Police raided his apartment in the Nice Nord district this morning. He works as a delivery driver and is known for criminal acts, including violence, but any radicalisation has gone unnoticed. His act seems yet to have been premeditated. He may have hired the truck
on Wednesday in a neighboring town of Nice. The investigators are still is looking for possible accomplices."
"A Bastille Day fireworks celebration was shattered by death and mayhem
on Thursdaynight in the southern French city of Nice when a large truck barreled for more than a mile through an enormous crowd of spectators, crushing and maiming dozens in what
France’s president called a terrorist assault,"
reported the New York Times. "It came eight months after the
Paris attacks that traumatized the nation and all of Europe."
"Officials and witnesses in Nice said at least 84 people, including children, were killed by the driver of the rampaging truck, who mowed them down on the sidewalk," the Timesadded. "He was shot to death by the police as officers scrambled to respond on what is France’s most important annual holiday. Graphic television and video images showed the truck accelerating and tearing through the crowd, dozens of victims sprawled in its path, and the bullet-riddled windshield of the vehicle. Municipal officials and police officers described the truck as full of weapons and grenades."
“The horror, the horror has, once again, hit France,” President
François Hollande said in a nationally televised address early
Friday. He said the “terrorist character” of the assault was undeniable, and he described the use of a large truck to deliberately kill people as “a monstrosity.”
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