Truck Attack in NICE (France) on Bastille Day

hitomiblue · #1 ● 07-14-2016, 06:10 PM

Currently in the news. At least 60 84 people dead, over 100 injured people.

Truck ran over the crowd that was standing looking at the fireworks on France's Bastille Day.

Truck driver has been killed.

A French-Tunisian criminal well known to the police for armed attacks used a hired lorry to kill at least 84 people in a terrorist attack during Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, it emerged on Friday.

Many children were among the death toll in the Riviera city following a "cowardly and barbaric" atrocity.

As hundreds remained in hospital, including 18 in intensive care, anti-terrorist judges opened an investigation into ‘mass murder’.

Sources close to the enquiry said the perpetrator was a local 30-year-old career criminal who was born in Tunisia before moving to France.

His 19 tonne lorry had zigzagged through crowds massing on the Promenade des Anglais on Thursday night, killing anyone he could.

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

"He was known to the police for violence, and using weapons, but had no direct links with terrorism," said an investigating source. "His identity car was found in the lorry. He had French and Tunisian nationality."

A search of the vehicle uncovered a pistol, a larger gun, and a number of fake weapons and grenades.

The fact that the killer was known to the authorities will be of grave concern to those trying to prevent terrorist attacks in France.

A recent Paris parliamentary investigation into last year’s attacks identified multiple failings by France’s intelligence agencies.

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."

President Francois Hollande meanwhile spoke of a "monstrosity", and said soldiers would be deployed to support gendarmes and police, particularly at the country’s borders.

A State of Emergency imposed last year after almost 150 people were killed during attacks on Paris would be extended to July 26th, Mr Hollande added.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve meanwhile said: "We are at war with terrorists who want to strike us at any cost and who are extremely violent."

Tony Molina, an American witness to the attack, told CNN: "There was still a crowd of people and then you just see this big white panel truck, I couldn’t see the driver, but it just kept going at different angles from left to right at 25 to 30 miles and hour.

"People were screaming and running. I work in homicide and I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s unbelievable."

The Promenade Anglais was packed on what is traditionally the biggest public holiday in France, when the man struck soon after 10.45am.

The white lorry mounted the pavement repeatedly at approximately 40mph and steered directly towards men, women, and children, some of whom were still dressed for the beach.

Locals were advised to stay indoors as soldiers and anti-terrorist police flooded the area.

The National Gendarmeris tweeted: "Emergency operation in progress. Keep calm and avoid city centre. Follow official social media accounts for information."

British holidaymaker Esther Serwah, 59, was staying in a hotel a short walk from the scene.

She said she had been on her way to the Promenade des Anglais for dinner with her daughters when people started screaming at her.

Mrs Serwah, from Surrey, said: "I was just walking to the Promenade and then I saw everybody running and I just didn’t know what was going on. People were screaming at me in French but I didn’t understand.

"Some people were lying on the streets dead and people were running over the bodies. Everybody was saying it’s a terrorist attack. It’s just horrible, horrible, horrible. I’m in shock. I’m still shaking."

Bastille Day, which celebrates the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris during the French Revolution of 1789, is the country's biggest public holiday.

France’s Muslim Faith Council (CFCM) was among those organisations who condemned last night’s attack "with great vigour".

A CFCM statement read: "France has just been hit again by an attack of extreme gravity", one that was "heinous and abject and designed to hurt our country on the day of the national holiday that celebrates values of liberty, equality and fraternity."

The parliamentary investigation into last year’s attacks which was published this month outlined "global failures".

A commission of MPs focused on the failure to prevent a series of attacks that killed a total of 147 people in 2015 – from January’s gun attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket to the coordinated gun and bomb attacks on Nov 13 outside the national sports stadium, at bars and restaurants, and at the Bataclan concert hall.

The report recommended a total overhaul of the intelligence services and the creation of a single, US-style national counter-terrorism agency.

George Fenech, the head of the commission, said: "Our country was not ready, now we must get ready."

also some more videos in the death vid section

After police finally neutralized the attacker, they searched the truck and managed to find ID papers belonging Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old French resident who was born in Tunisia, sources told media.

Later heavily-armed police forces searched an apartment in a working-class neighborhood in Nice where the alleged attacker lived.

Police have found no weapons or explosives at the home of the assailant during the searches, iTele reported. Experts seized a computer for examination.

The Nice attacker’s identity has been confirmed as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins told journalists, adding that the truck driver’s identity was verified from his fingerprints.

The neighbors described the attacker to Nice Matin newspaper as a solitary figure who even didn’t return greetings when their paths crossed. According to Sebastien who lived next to him, Bouhlel did not seem overly religious, was often dressed in shorts and sometimes wore work boots.

Meanwhile, the attacker’s brother told journalists he does not believe that Bouhlel could commit a terrorist attack out of religious motives as he was not religious at all.

“Mohamed could not do anything like this. He did not pray, he was not religious, he did not observe religious rituals. I do not believe that he could do it out of religious or extremist motives,” the attacker’s brother said, adding that Bouhlel was actually planning to go on vacation to the Tunisian city of Sousse in the coming days.

He was “a good-looking man who kept giving my two daughters the eye,” one female neighbor told the paper.

“He was divorcing or divorced with three kids,” another neighbor Mohammed said, adding that that Bouhlel had been very nervous recently.

Bouhlel also reportedly suffered from depression because of a divorce and financial problems.

"I would say he was someone who was pleasing to women," Hanan, also a neighbor, told Reuters.

"But he was frightening. He didn't have a frightening face, but ... a look. He would stare at the children a lot," he added.

According to the daily, Bouhlel must have arrived in France in the 2000s. He had a French residence permit for the past 10 years but never obtained French citizenship, Reuters reports, citing Tunisian sources.

A year after his arrival, he reportedly got into a traffic accident that led to his arrest.

In March of 2016, he was arrested again – this time for “road rage” – and convicted for the first time, French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said.

“There was an altercation between him and another driver and he hurled a wooden pallet at the man,” Urvoas told reporters.

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Bouhlel was given a suspended sentence because it was his first conviction. He had to contact police once a week, which he did, the minister added.

It was probably ‘a petty crime’ for which he was known to French authorities.

Several photos of the alleged attacker have been circulating on social media, but police are yet to confirm any of them.

The ex-wife of the attacker has been held for questioning, BFMTV reported.

Tunisia initially remained silent about the attacker and didn’t comment on his nationality. Later Tunisian security sources told Reuters that he came from the town of Msaken, north Tunisia, which he last visited four years ago. However, the attacker was not known to hold radical or Islamist views

[B]ISIS has claimed responsibility for Thursday's deadly truck attack in Nice, France, according to a statement released this morning by the group's media outlet.

Five individuals have also been detained for questioning by French authorities, following Thursday's attack, a spokeswoman for the French prosecutor's office said Saturday.

One of the five people detained by police is Bouhlel's ex-wife, who was taken into custody Friday morning. The four others are not family members, but friends or acquaintances.

Investigators are working to determine whether Bouhlel had any accomplices.

A vigil for the victims was slated for this morning, but it was cancelled by officials who cited security reasons.

The promenade and beaches are due to reopen at noon local time on Satuday.

During an interview with French radio, Bouhlel's father said he had not seen his son in four years. He also claimed he had psychiatric problems.