FIVE ARRESTS AS ISLAMIC STATE CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY FOR BASTILLE DAY MASSACRE
ISLAMIC State has claimed it carried out the Nice truck attack which killed at least 84 people, in a statement issued by the group’s media outlet. Five people have been arrested following the Bastille Day massacre, according to officials.
Inquiries were continuing into whether 31-year-old driver Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel acted alone or had accomplices before he drove a 19-tonne hired truck into scores of people.
More than 200 people on Promenade des Anglais were jured.
Officers carried out a raid at an the in- address near Nice’s main train station yesterday morning and made two arrests, Europe 1 reported.
They were thought to be known to the killer.
A third person was also arrested at an address in Nice earlier in the morning.
According to reports, the terrorist’s ex-wife was being questioned on Friday.
The driver’s father has reported that Bouhlel had received psychiatric treatment in the past.
He was unknown to the security services.
A neighbour of Bouhlel’s said he did not believe he was involved with Islamic State.
Speaking outside the high-rise block of flats on Boulevard Henri Sappia, where the suspect had previously lived with his family, Samiq, who did not want to give his surname, said the 31-year-old was not a devout Muslim.
The 19-year-old, who used to play football with Bouhlel, said: “I never saw him going to the Mosque. He was not a Muslim. During Ramadan I saw him smoking.”
Asked if he thought his neighbour, whom he said had moved three years ago but returned often to visit his family, carried out the attack on behalf of the extremist group, he said: “I never heard him speak about extremism, I cannot believe that he was a member of Islamic State.”
He said people thought Bouhlel had psychological problems.
“He was a little bit crazy,” he said, but the teenager added that he was shocked by what had happened.
Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she knew Bouhlel’s wife and described her as a “really lovely woman, who doesn’t deserve all this”.
She added: “She was quiet, she stayed at home with her children. She was a bit naive, she never went out.”
The waterfront promenade in Nice re-opened at midday yesterday for the first time since Thursday’s attack, with flags at half-mast.
The Queen added her voice to the wave of sympathy from leaders across the world as the country faced this further terror attack, following those in Paris in November in which 130 died, and in January 2015 in which 17 were killed.
President Francois Hollande said 50 people were “between life and death”, while several people were
among the missing and a “small number” of Britons were injured.
The Foreign Office on Friday night described the carnage as a “terrorist attack”, causing multiple casualties, and updated its advice for Britons in Nice.
The new advice said: “If you’re in the area, follow the instructions of the French authorities, who have cancelled a number of public events planned for the coming days, closed the Promenade des Anglais and a number of the public beaches in and around Nice, and implemented some traffic restrictions.”
A vigil took place at Nice Cathedral on Friday night and mourners also gathered at a makeshift memorial amid a visible police presence near the promenade, which was closed to the public.
Revellers in the resort initially thought the commotion was part of a celebratory firework display, but then saw the lorry and assumed the driver had lost control.
A Cardiff University student in Nice has described closing his eyes and waiting to die as the lorry hurtled towards him.
Imad Dafaaoui was on the Promenade des Anglais during the lorry attack on Thursday.
Speaking to ABC News, he said he would have been hit if he had not jumped over a bench.
After jumping over it and landing on a woman on the floor, he said: “I just closed my eyes and waited for the crash.
“I was feeling that I’m going to die. I was feeling really, really scared. I didn’t know what to do. I just gave up at that moment.”
He said the sound of the lorry colliding with the bench was “scary”.
“I looked at it and I found it de- stroyed so it was really, really close,” he said.
He told ABC News that the lorry had been just 20cm away from him.
“I was just waiting to die,” he added.
Prime Minister Theresa May has said Britain must redouble its efforts to defeat “brutal” terrorist “murderers”, while police forces across England and Wales have been told to review security at major events over the next week in the wake of the bloodbath.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who had celebrated Bastille Day with dinner at the French embassy in London, described the attack as “appalling and cowardly”.
The Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) issued a statement encouraging people to check with their tour operators before heading to France.
There was a lengthy queue for passport control as passengers landed at Nice airport on flights from London on Friday evening.