UPDATE: ISIS attacks Bastille Day 84 dead 100s injured

[Anthea]

Truck rams Bastille Day crowd in Nice killing at least 70

At least 70 people were killed and around 100 more were injured when an armed man drove a lorry at full speed into a crowd who had gathered to watch the Bastille Day fireworks display over the seafront in Nice on Thursday night.

Police say a vehicle which struck crowds celebrating Bastille Day in the southern French city of Nice contained ‘arms, loaded with grenades’

French anti-terror police are investigating after the driver careered into the dense crowd and continued to drive into them for a distance of 2km. The French interior ministry confirmed that the driver was shot dead by police, who are investigating whether the lone driver had acted alone or had accomplices.

A police source told Le Monde that the driver was armed. Christian Estrosi, head of the local region, said there were explosives in the van.

The date of the attack – France’s national day of celebration – was seen as symbolic coming after 130 people were killed in November’scoordinated Paris attacks on a stadium, bars and a rock gig at the Bataclan concert venue.

Witnesses described scenes of terror and chaos on Nice’s famous beachfront Promenade des Anglais as the truck driver ran down dozens in the crowd that included families, children and babies in pushchairs. Moments earlier the crowd of locals and tourists had been gathered in a festive atmosphere to mark France’s 14 July bank holiday with the traditional fireworks display and concert.

Witnesses described scenes of horror and chaos with one man saying the van had mowed down people “like skittles at a bowling alley”.

Maryam Violet, an Iranian journalist visiting the Mediterranean city on holiday, told the Guardian that she saw the lorry running over people as they walked in the pedestrian area minutes after the fireworks had finished. “Everyone was completely shocked, I saw that suddenly people were fleeing and shouting,” she said.

“People were shouting, ‘it’s a terrorist attack, it’s a terrorist attack’. It was clear that the driver was doing it deliberately,” she said. “I was walking for nearly a mile and that there were dead bodies over the place. I think over 30 dead bodies are on the ground and lots of people are injured. The dead bodies have been covered by blue sheets.

“I saw two sisters and one brother from Poland that were mourning the death of their two other siblings,” she said.

“There were so many Muslim people who were victims because I could see they had scarves over their head and some were speaking Arabic, one family lost a mother and in Arabic, they were saying she’s a martyr,” she said. “People were celebrating and it was so peaceful, it was a festive vibe, it was right after the fireworks that the truck came and ran over people.”

Restaurant owners on the beach front described sheltering panicked crowds who were fleeing and screaming.

A reporter for the French news agency AFP described seeing a white vehicle driving at high speed on to the promenade.

“We saw people hit and bits of debris flying around,” he said, adding that the incident took place near the Hotel Negresco.

The French president, François Hollande, rushed back to the Paris government crisis centre from a visit to Avignon. Earlier he had given his traditional Bastille Day address saying that France’s state of emergency, in place since November’s Paris attacks would end on 26 July.

Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native who spoke to the Associated Press said that he saw a lorry drive into the crowd and then witnessed the man emerge with a gun and start shooting. “There was carnage on the road,” Bouhlel said. “Bodies everywhere.”

It was not clear whether the driver had opened fire, or whether the gunfire heard by witnesses was part of police attempts to neutralise the driver.

A spokesman at No 10 said the new prime minister, Theresa May, was being kept up to date on events, adding: “Our thoughts are with all those affected by this terrible incident on what was a day of national celebration.”

The White House said that President Obama had been told of the situation was being kept updated. The president condemned “what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack in Nice” and said he had directed his team to offer any assistance France may need in its investigation.

The Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, announced on Twitter that, after the events in Nice, he was delaying a press conference planned for Friday to announce his running mate.

He tweeted: “Another horrific attack, this time in Nice, France. Many dead and injured. When will we learn? It is only getting worse.”

The French ambassador to the US, Gérard Araud, also tweeted: “Our democracies are besieged. Let’s stick more than ever to our values. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Vive la France, vive les Etats-Unis.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... t-least-70

[Anthea]

77 dead' after truck crashes into crowd at Bastille Day celebrations in Nice 'terror attack'

A spokesman for the Alpes Maritime prefecture advised locals to

‘stay indoors’ as gunfire was heard

Lorry was driven into a crowd on the Promenade des Anglais, Peter Allen reports.

Bodies could be seen lying on the floor by the beach, as the police and other emergency services tried to deal with a mass panic.

Fireworks were filling the night sky as the drama unfolded, as the crowds enjoyed July 14th, which is always a Bank Holiday in France.

"It is absolute chaos,” said an eye witness who works in the Nice judiciary.

"There are reports of dozens of people killed, and many more injured. Bodies are lying everywhere.

"Police are flooding the streets, including anti-terrorism officers. Nobody knows what to do, except to hide away. Gunmen are meant to be targeting hotels."

The lorry was seen mounting the pavement and piling into anyone the driver could see, ramming over those who tried to run away.

The area around the Promenade is full of hotels and restaurants, which that were all packed at the height of the holiday season.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07 ... -in-nice2/

[Anthea]

Eyewitnesses say there was an exchange of gunfire in the aftermath of the incident before the driver was shot dead.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to unconfirmed reports in the French media. A second suspect is currently on the run, according to French authorities.

One eyewitness told BFM TV: 'Everyone was calling run, run, run there's an attack run, run, run. We heard some shots. We thought they were fireworks because it's the 14th of July.

'There was great panic. We were running too because we didn't want to stick around and we went into a hotel to get to safety.

Harjit Sarang, 42, a surrogacy lawyer from London, was in the city with her husband and two young sons, aged six and nine.

She said on Twitter: 'Running through crowds in Nice with kids and terrified. Never taking kids to a public event again. Finally back to hotel. Hate this ! #nice.

'Can't stop shaking. Hate that my boys had to experience this. Why did I take them. Why did they do this and why the f*** is this happening!'

[Anthea]

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

Nice attack: President Hollande to chair crisis talks

French President Francois Hollande is to chair crisis talks with his inner security cabinet following Thursday's attack in Nice that killed 84 people.

Mr Hollande, who says the attack was a terrorist act, has already extended a state of emergency by three months.

On Thursday, a lorry driver ploughed through a crowd marking Bastille Day on Nice's Promenade des Anglais.

The driver was later shot dead by police. He was identified as Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31.

Prosecutors said he had driven the lorry 2km (1.2 miles) along the famous promenade, zigzagging and targeting people.

Ten of the dead were children. Some 202 people were injured; 52 are critical, of whom 25 are on life support.

At the meeting with the security chiefs, Mr Hollande is expected to review all available options in response to the attack.

In a televised address to the nation on Thursday night, he pledged that army reservists would be called up to help provide security across the country.

A state of emergency was in place across France since November's Paris attacks carried out by militants from the so-called Islamic State group, in which 130 people died. It had been due to end on 26 July.

Mr Hollande said the attack was of "an undeniable terrorist nature".

He warned that the battle against terrorism would be long, as France faced an enemy "that will continue to attack those people and those countries that count liberty as an essential value".

"We will overcome the suffering because we are a united France," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36812295

[Anthea]

Interior minister calls for unity as France reels from Nice attack

Some of the hundreds of bouquets that line the Promenade des Anglais have already begun to wilt in the July heat of the French Riviera. But fresh replacements arrive by the minute, carried by locals and tourists, couples, dog walkers, cyclists and skateboarders. Many bear cards with the same, simple message: “They wanted to gaze up at heaven, not go there.”

Although the promenade has reopened and the caravan of TV crews has started to move on, neither Nice nor France has yet to awaken from the nightmare of Thursday night, when a truck sped along the thoroughfare, killing 84 people and injuring more than 200. For a country already bitterly schooled in terror, this was both something dreadful and something utterly, appallingly novel.

On Saturday, hours after Islamic State (Isis) claimed responsibility for the latest deadly assault on French soil, the country’s interior minister appealed for calm and unity as France reeled from what he termed “a new kind of terror attack”.

Bernard Cazeneuve said initial indications suggested the truck’s driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, had been “radicalised very quickly” before the attack.

Although the 31-year-old Tunisian, who held a French residency permit, was known to police through a string of minor fracas over the past six years, the minister confirmed he had not crossed the radar of the intelligence services.

Cazeneuve also noted the carnage on the Promenade des Anglais bore none of the hallmarks of previous attacks such as the assault on the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery in Paris or the coordinated attacks on Paris last November.

“There were no heavy weapons or explosives used,” he said. “As a result, the trauma induced by this extremely violent crime has deeply shocked the French people and underlined the massive difficulty of the struggle against terrorism.

“We are confronted by individuals who, vulnerable to messages from [Isis], carry out extremely violent acts without necessarily having taken part in combat or received training.”

In response to questions as to how the truck had managed to get on to the promenade when there had been police cars blocking access, Cazeneuve said the vehicle had “very violently” mounted the pavement to force its way into the pedestrianised area.

As the French right criticised the government’s security operation in the wake of the attack, and a political debate erupted over whether anything could have been done to prevent the carnage, Cazeneuve leapt to the defence of the police and intelligence services. Since the beginning of the year, he said, 160 people connected with terror plots had been arrested, thwarting “a significant number of attacks” – including some that could have targeted the Euro 2016 football tournament.

He batted away the political controversy, saying that events in Nice demanded national unity rather than attempts at political point scoring.

“The terrorists are trying to divide us,” he said. “If we allow ourselves to become divided, we are helping them achieve their aims.”

Thirty-six hours after the Nice attacks, two Isis-affiliated media outlets claimed that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had been a “soldier” acting on its behalf. In a statement, the news agency Amaq said: “The person who carried out the operation in Nice, France, to run down people was one of the soldiers of Islamic State. He carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of states that are part of the coalition fighting Islamic State.”

Not long after, the Isis-operated radio station Bayan claimed that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was a soldier who had completed a “new, special operation using a truck”. It warned western nations that no security measures would spare them “from the blows of the mujahideen”.

Despite the claims, however, relatives and neighbours of Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who was eventually shot dead by police, have said he showed no obvious interest in religion.

His father, Monthir Bouhlel, said his son had undergone psychiatric treatment in the past and was unstable and sometimes violent. His sister, Rabeb Bouhel, told Reuters: “My brother had psychological problems and we have given the police documents showing that he had been seeing psychologists for several years.”

After the atrocities on Nice’s waterfront, a country reeling from multiple attacks in recent months teeters on the edge of political upheaval

According to judicial sources, five people have been arrested since the attack. Agence France-Presse reported that one of the people being held was arrested on Friday, while three others were detained on Saturday morning. The driver’s estranged wife was also being held.

The killing began shortly before 11pm on Thursday when the truck sped down the promenade and began mowing down people. According to the authorities, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel managed to breach the barriers by driving the truck on to the pavement.

What followed looked, in the words of one Italian tourist, “like the apocalypse”.

By Saturday morning, as France began three days of national mourning and President François Hollande held a security meeting with ministers, police and intelligence officers, the promenade had reopened.

As some walked and jogged beside the beach, others continued to leave floral tributes at the metal barriers lining the promenade.

At the Fondation Lenval, Nice children’s hospital, where 30 young patients were taken on Thursday night, some were still fighting for their lives.

A spokeswoman said that five children were in a critical condition, one in a stable condition and three on respirators. She said the youngest child receiving treatment was just six months old, adding that most of the children were being treated for head injuries and fractures. An eight-year-old child, thought to be foreign, was still awaiting identification on Saturday afternoon.

The hospital has set up a counselling centre staffed by four psychologists to help people deal with the trauma of Thursday’s attack, so far treating more than 50 families.

“We’re used to treating a lot of children, but the difficult thing with this is the psychological aspect,” said the spokeswoman.

Madame Bourmault, who lives two minutes from the promenade, was still struggling to come to terms with the atrocity as she returned to the scene on Friday night with a bunch of flowers in her hand and tears in her eyes.

“I can’t sleep and I can’t breathe. It’s just horrible,” she said. “What else can you say?”

She had been down by the firework display on Thursday night and seen a sudden tide of people screaming and running away. “In a fraction of a second, the music stopped and there was a lot of screaming. Everyone was running and no one was helping.”

Despite the scenes she witnessed, she refused to blame the authorities for what had happened. What else, she asked, could the police have done?

“You can’t put a policeman behind everyone - and there are a lot of crazy people in this world.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... amic-state

[Anthea]

Despite the claims, however, relatives and neighbours of Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who was eventually shot dead by police, have said he showed no obvious interest in religion.

I distinctly remember ISIS advising it's followers NOT to visit Mosques and NOT to grow beards

Those who were newly converted were advised NOT to show any difference at all in their behaviour

I also remember ISIS telling it's supporters to increase the number of 'lone wolf' attacks

[Piling]

This poor insane man is told to have sent 100 000 euros to his family few days before the attack. For a lone wolf that's a bit surprsing.

[Anthea]

This poor insane man is told to have sent 100 000 euros to his family few days before the attack. For a lone wolf that's a bit surprsing.

Insane I wonder - not so sure myself

Sounds as though he had already planned the attack but felt a twinge of guilt knowing his family might suffer

Also strengthens the belief that he was well organised as he also rented the lorry in advance

[Anthea]

Police arrest three in Nice as Islamic State claims truck attack

France Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the truck attack that killed at least 84 people celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice and police arrested three more people there in connection with the seafront carnage.

"The person who carried out the operation in Nice, France, to run down people was one of the soldiers of Islamic State," the Amaq news agency affiliated with the militant Islamist group said on its Telegram account.

"He carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of states that are part of the coalition fighting Islamic State."

French authorities have yet to produce any evidence that the 31 year-old Tunisian killer, shot dead by police in the attack, had turned to radical Islam. Nevertheless, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel may have undergone a rapid change.

"It seems that he was radicalised very quickly -- in any case these are the elements that have come up from the testimony of the people around him," Cazeneuve told reporters.

Speaking from his home town in Tunisia, Bouhlel's sister told Reuters he had been having psychological problems when he left for France in 2005.

Other relatives and friends interviewed in Nice doubted he had militant Islamist leanings.

Saturday's arrests concerned his "close entourage", police sources said. Two other people, including the attacker's wife, had already been detained.

Bouhlel had been in France for 10 years and lived locally.

He drove at the crowd in the Riviera city on Thursday night, zig-zagging along the seafront Promenade des Anglais for two kilometers as a fireworks display marking the French national day ended, until police eventually shot him dead.

The Health Ministry said 121 people remained in hospital, including 30 children. Twenty-six individuals were still in intensive care.

The attack plunged France into new grief and fear just eight months after gunmen killed 130 people in Paris. Assaults in January 2015 on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket were also claimed by Islamic State, which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria but is now under military pressure from forces opposed to it.

A state of emergency in place since the Paris killings last November is to be extended for another three months. On Saturday Cazeneuve called on "patriotic citizens" to become reservists to help relieve exhausted security forces.

Bouhlel 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, having been sentenced to probation three months ago for throwing a wooden pallet at another driver.

Edwin Bakker, Professor at the Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, said Islamic State's claim did not necessarily point to any formal link.

"Islamic State called for such (individual) attacks to be carried out back in 2014. They are also using the public perception that an attack like this seems to fit Islamic State.

"Investigators still have not discovered a direct link between Islamic State and the attacker, so it is a cheap claim," he said.

NISSA MA BELLE

In Nice, where the holiday season would normally be in full swing, organizers of the annual Jazz festival joined the singer Rihanna in cancelling their event. A five-day annual festival that has run since 1948 had been due to start on Saturday.

Nice's beaches, which are usually packed in mid-July, were noticeably less busy.

Tearful well-wishers were still laying flowers, candles, teddy bears and drawings at a makeshift memorial on the Promenade des Anglais.

"Nothing will ever be like before ... Nissa ma belle," read one, a reference to the hymn 'Nissa la Bella', or Nice the Beautiful, sung in the local Nicois dialect.

"Enough of the carnage. Stop the massacre," read another.

Tora Hakausson, from Norway, owns a flat in Nice, and was dining in a beach restaurant when the attack took place.

"We don't want to go home. Life has to remain normal. I don't want this to change how we feel about France," she said as she wiped away a tear from under her sunglasses.

"Anger is the main emotion today," said Maiche Arlette, a resident of the city. "For two and a half years now we have suffered from these attacks ...

"Our society has gone mad."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-europe ... KKCN0ZW0DT

[Anthea]

Nice attack death toll rises to 86 as injured man dies

The number of people killed when a lorry ploughed into crowds in the French city of Nice on 14 July has risen to 86.

A French government official said a man who had been injured in the attack on the Promenade des Anglais died of his injuries.

The man, who has not been named, leaves behind a wife and two children.

The attack, which has been claimed by so-called Islamic State, was carried out by a Tunisian man living in France.

Eighty-three people died on the night of the attack on Bastille Day and three have since died in hospital of injuries sustained when Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a lorry into celebrating crowds.

Among the dead were 10 children and teenagers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37137816

We must never forget

[Anthea]

Eight men arrested in connection with Bastille Day attack in Nice, French prosecutors announce

They are all former associates of terrorist Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who was shot dead at the scene of the atrocity

Eighty-six people were killed in the July 14 terror attack

The men were arrested in a series of raids across the south of France

Six people were already being investigated before the new arrests

Eight men have been arrested in connection with the Bastille Day massacre in the French city of Nice, prosecutors announced today.

The suspects are all former associates of Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, the 31-year-old Tunisian who used a 19 tonne lorry to slaughter 86 people on July 14.

His attack was later claimed by ISIS, as the terror organisation said the bloodshed was all part of its ongoing murderous campaign against France.

Paris prosecutors said coordinated raids across the south of France on Monday led to the eight men, who are of Tunisian and French nationality, being taken into custody.

Six people are already under formal criminal investigation in relation to the case, meaning the total of suspects is now 14.

The identities of those arrested this week in Nice, Saint-Laurent-du-Var and Cagnes-sur-Mer have not been revealed.

But the others include Chokri C., Mohamed Oualid G. and Ramzi A., who face criminal trial for 'complicity to kill as part of gang related to a terrorist enterprise'.

All three are said to have spent time with Lahouaiej-Bouhlel in the days leading up to the attack on a crowd of some 30,000 people attending a fireworks display.

Another suspect called Hamdi Z. is under investigation for 'criminal association in relation to a terrorist enterprise' after appearing in a 'selfie' photo taken by Lahouaiej-Bouhlel in the truck, just before the attack was launched.

Ramzi A. has also been indicted for firearms offences, along with an Albanian couple - Artan H. and Enkeledja Z. - who are said to have supplied a pistol to Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, which he fired at police.

Police have come under severe criticism for allowing the atrocity to happen, on what was France's biggest national holiday of the year.

All trucks were meant to be banned from the seafront at Nice, yet Lahouaiej-Bouhlel's vehicle was effectively unchallenged as it set off along the Promenade des Anglais.

Lahouaiej-Bouhlel suffered from psychological problems, and showed very little interest in religion, but had started to read about terrorist extremism on the internet just before his death.

He has often been portrayed a lone wolf killer, but anti-terrorist investigators are convinced that others knew what he was planning.

France remains under a state of emergency following a series of Isis atrocities over the past year, including the November 13th attacks on Paris.

They saw a so-called 'commando' unit wearing suicide belts and carrying AK-47s slaughter 130 people in cold blood, and maim hundreds of others.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ounce.html