Nice prepares to remember attack victims in special ceremony

A woman stands near a memorial to the victims of the July 14 attack on the Promenade des Anglais, two days before a national tribute in Nice, France, October 12, 2016. REUTERS

NICE, France (Reuters) – Three months after a man plowed his truck into crowds on France’s national day in Nice, the southern coastal city is trying to recover as it prepares to remember the 86 victims in a national ceremony of remembrance.

Tributes line the sea-front promenade along which Tunisian-born Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a 19-ton truck, mowing down people watching fireworks on France’s July 14 Bastille Day, before police shot him dead.

Curious visitors and grieving locals stop to look at bouquets of flowers, toys and yellowing notes left in memory of the victims.

“We haven’t forgotten it. People are less trusting, more nervous and the atmosphere is heavier,” said Stephanie Marton, a mother of five who was on the promenade with her children that night. “(It) is not at all like what it was before July 14.”

Marton said the family, who threw themselves onto the ground out of the way of the truck hurtling toward them, still lives in the shadow of the attack.

People walk past a memorial to the victims of the July 14 attack on the Promenade des Anglais, two days before a national tribute in Nice, France,

People walk past a memorial to the victims of the July 14 attack on the Promenade des Anglais, two days before a national tribute in Nice, France, October 12, 2016. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

“Three months later, it’s still in their heads and it’s still hard for them,” she said. “They still have nightmares at night – and I sometimes get them too – and they find it really hard to be near the promenade.”

Nice was due to hold a national ceremony of remembrance, led by French President Francois Hollande, on Friday, exactly three months after the attack.

But a statement from his Elysee Palace on Thursday said the event, on a hill overlooking the French Riviera and attended by survivors and victims’ families, will now take place on Saturday due to bad weather.

(Reporting by Michel Bernouin; Writing by Johnny Cotton and Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

France’s lawmakers urged to unite on emergency rule

A Portuguese citizen places a candle during a candle vigil held at the French Embassy in Manama to condemn and mourn the attack in Nice, France, where a driver of a heavy truck ran into a crowd on Bastille Day killing at least 84 people

By Brian Love

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s government, smarting from accusations that it did not do enough to prevent last week’s deadly truck attack in Nice, urged lawmakers on Tuesday to extend a period of emergency rule that gives police greater search-and-arrest powers.

Criticized by opposition politicians and jeered by crowds at a remembrance ceremony on Monday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls wants lawmakers to back a three-month rollover of the emergency regime imposed after a previous lethal attack last November.

“We need people to stay together, we want to move fast with broad backing,” said government spokesman Stephane Le Foll.

The move came as Nice’s seafront boulevard, the Promenade des Anglais, reopened after Thursday’s attack, in which Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a truck into crowds of Bastille Day resellers, killing 84, before being shot dead by police.

Dozens more were hurt and 19 people remain on life support five days after the carnage that prosecutor Francois Molins described as terrorist. Islamic State has claimed the attack although no hard evidence linking Bouhlel to the militant group has been found.

Molins said Bouhlel had shown sudden signs of interest in hardline Islamist propaganda in the days before he ran amok while noting that he also ate pork, drank alcohol and engaged in “unbridled sexual activity”.

Speaking ahead of Tuesday evening’s parliamentary debate on the emergency rule plan, Le Foll said President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government was willing to consider a longer, six-month extension of emergency rule in line with demands from right-wing members of the National Assembly.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French fighter jets would keep bombing the strongholds of Islamic State, which has seized control of parts of Syria and Iraq and called for believers to attack France because of its bombardments.

“This is not just symbolic,” Le Drian said of the emergency rule bill, adding that France was second only to the United States in the number of air strikes against Islamic State bases.

“We can see from what happened in Germany that the threat is everywhere,” the minister said, alluding to news of yet another attack overnight in Germany in which a man hit train commuters with an axe, seriously injuring four.

As tension ran high over risks of further attacks in France, police officials also confirmed that explosives had been found at the flat of an arrested taxi driver who was on an intelligence services watchlist.

The number of French people who believe Francois Hollande is up to the task of tackling terrorism plunged to 33 percent after the attack in Nice, from confidence ratings of 50 percent or so in the wake of the two other big attacks in early and late 2015.

France imposed emergency rule after the Nov. 13 attacks in which Islamist militants killed 130 people in Paris, giving the police powers to search homes and place people under immediate house arrest without advance clearance from judges.

The bill to be debated in parliament on Tuesday night would also grant police and spy services greater powers to dig into suspects’ computers and mobile phone communications.

Another poll published on Tuesday asked voters who they absolutely did not want to see elected leader of France next June: 73 percent said Hollande, but the percentage hostile to far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who some believe will benefit from a climate of voter alienation, topped 60 percent.

(Reporting by Brian Love, Marine Pennetier and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, and Matthias Galante in Nice; Editing by Andrew Callus and Catherine Evans)

France investigating whether truck attacker acted alone – 10 children dead

A body is seen on the ground after a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday in Nice, France.

NICE, France (Reuters) – French authorities were trying to determine on Friday whether a Tunisian who killed at least 84 people by plowing a truck into Bastille Day crowds had acted alone or with accomplices, but said the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamist militants.

Thursday night’s attack in the Riviera city of Nice plunged France again into grief and fear just eight months after gunmen killed 130 people in Paris. Those attacks, and one in Brussels four months ago, have shocked Western Europe, already anxious over security challenges from mass immigration, open borders and pockets of Islamist radicalism.

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

At least 10 children were among the dead. Of the scores of injured, 25 were on life support, authorities said on Friday.

Bystander Franck Sidoli said he had seen people go down before the truck finally stopped just five meters away from him.

“A woman was there, she lost her son. Her son was on the ground, bleeding,” he told Reuters at the scene.

The driver, 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, shot dead by officers at the scene, 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, sentenced to probation three months ago for throwing a wooden pallet at another driver.

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

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

Bouhlel’s ex-wife was in police custody, Molins said. Police found one pistol and various fake weapons in his truck.

DRIED BLOOD, SMASHED STROLLERS

Dawn broke on Friday with pavements smeared with dried blood. Smashed children’s strollers, an uneaten baguette and other debris were strewn about the promenade. Small areas were screened off and what appeared to be bodies covered in blankets were visible through the gaps.

The truck was still where it had come to rest, its windscreen riddled with bullets.

“I saw this enormous white truck go past at top speed,” said Suzy Wargniez, a local woman aged 65 who had watched from a cafe on the promenade. “It was shooting, shooting.”

At Nice’s Pasteur hospital, medical staff were treating large numbers of injuries. Waiting for friends who were being operated on was 20-year-old Fanny.

“The truck pushed me to the side. When I opened my eyes I saw faces I didn’t know and started asking for help,” she told Reuters. “Some of my friends were not so lucky. They are having operations as we speak.”

Tunisian security sources told Reuters the suspect had last visited his hometown of Msaken four years ago. He had three children and was not known by the Tunisian authorities to hold radical or Islamist views.

BODIES EVERY FIVE METERS

“France is filled with sadness by this new tragedy,” President Francois Hollande said in a dawn address.

A state of emergency imposed after the November attacks was extended by a further three months. Military and police reservists would be called up to help enforce it.

Nice-Matin journalist Damien Allemand had been watching the firework display when the truck tore by. After taking cover in a cafe, he wrote on his paper’s website of what he saw: “Bodies every five meters, limbs … Blood. Groans.”

“The beach attendants were first on the scene. They brought water for the injured and towels, which they placed on those for whom there was no more hope.”

Neighbors in the residential neighborhood in northern Nice where Bouhlel lived described him as a handsome but unsettling man, with a tense personality.

“I would say he was someone who was pleasing to women,” said neighbor Hanan, standing in the lobby of the apartment building where Bouhlel lived. “But he was frightening. He didn’t have a frightening face, but … a look. He would stare at the children a lot.”

Police carried out a controlled explosion on a white van near the home, blowing the doors open and leaving shattered glass all around, but it was not clear whether they found anything incriminating.

Bouhlel’s Tunisian home town Msaken is about 10 km (six miles) outside the coastal city of Sousse, where a gunman killed 38 people, mostly British holidaymakers, on a beach a year ago. Many people from the area have moved to France, including Nice which is home to as many as 130,000 Tunisians.

CRITICISM

With presidential and parliamentary elections less than a year away, French opposition politicians seized on what they described as security failings that made it possible for the truck to career 2 km (1.5 miles) through large crowds before it was finally halted.

Christian Ertosi, a security hardliner who was mayor of Nice until last month and is now president of the Riviera region in which Nice lies, had written on the eve of the attack to Hollande to demand more funding for police.

“As far as I’m concerned, I demand answers, and not the usual stuff,” Estrosi said on BFM TV Friday morning hours after the attack, questioning whether the government provided enough national police officers for the fireworks display.

(GRAPHIC: Map of Nice truck attack http://tmsnrt.rs/29LqLWk)

After the Paris attacks, Islamic State said France and all nations following its path would remain at the top of its list of targets as long as they continued “their crusader campaign”, referring to action against the group in Iraq and Syria.

France is a major part of a U.S.-led mission conducting air strikes and special forces operations against Islamic State, as well as training Iraqi government and Kurdish forces. France has also sent troops to West Africa to battle Islamist insurgents.

“We will further strengthen our actions in Syria and Iraq,” Hollande said, calling the tragedy – on the day France marks the 1789 revolutionary storming of the Bastille prison in Paris – an attack on liberty by fanatics who despised human rights.

“We are facing a battle that will be long because facing us is an enemy that wants to continue to strike all people and all countries that have values like ours,” he said.

France is home to the European Union’s biggest Muslim population, mostly descended from immigrants from North African former colonies. It maintains a secular culture that allows no place for religion in schools and civic life, which supporters say encourages a common French identity but critics say contributes to alienation in some communities.

The Paris attack in November was the bloodiest among a number in France and Belgium in the past two years. On Sunday, a weary nation had breathed a sigh of relief that the month-long Euro 2016 soccer tournament had ended without serious incident.

Four months ago, Belgian Islamists linked to the Paris attackers killed 32 people in Brussels. Recent weeks have also seen major attacks in Bangladesh, Turkey and Iraq.

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned what he said “appears to be a horrific terrorist attack”. Others world leaders sent similar messages.

Nice, a city of 350,000, has a history as a flamboyant aristocratic resort but is also a gritty metropolis. It has seen dozens of its Muslim residents travel to Syria to fight.

On social media, Islamic State supporters celebrated the high death toll and posted a series of images, one showing a beach purporting to be that of Nice with white stones arranged to read “IS is here to stay” in Arabic.

(Additional reporting by Matthias Blamont, Maya Nikolaeva, Michel Rose, Bate Felix, Brian Love, Bate Felix and John Irish in Paris, Alastair Macdonald in Brussels, Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Tarek Amara in Tunis and Andreas Rinke in Ulaanbaatar; Writing by Alastair Macdonald, Andrew Callus, David Stamp and Peter Graff; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall, Pravin Char and Andrew Heavens)

Texas father and son among scores killed in France attack

French police secure the area as the investigation continues at the scene near the heavy truck that ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores who were celebrating the Bastille Day

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A Texan and his 11-year-old son on a family vacation were among at least 84 people killed when an attacker crashed a heavy truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day in the French seaside city of Nice, officials said on Friday.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott named the two as Sean Copeland and his son Brodie. Sean, 51, and Brodie were from Lakeway, about 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Austin, and were in the southern Riviera city on a European vacation, family friend Jess Davis told the Austin-American-Statesman newspaper.

French President Francois Hollande called Thursday night’s attack a terrorist act by an enemy determined to strike all nations that share France’s values.

The U.S. State Department confirmed two U.S. citizens were among the dead but did not identify them.

“We are heartbroken and in shock over the loss of Brodie Copeland, an amazing son and brother who lit up our lives, and Sean Copeland, a wonderful husband and father,” the family said in a statement.

Sean Copeland was the vice president of North and South America for Kapow Software, Davis said. Kapow is a division of Lexmark International Inc..

The governor’s office said the French flag is being flown over the governor’s mansion in Austin in remembrance of the victims. “While every heinous attack like this is tragic, this latest one hits close to home,” Abbott said in a statement.

“Sean was not only a terrific leader … but a phenomenal person who will be dearly missed,” said Lexmark spokesman Jerry Grasso.

Haley Copeland, a niece of Sean, wrote on Facebook that “losing a loved one is hard no matter the circumstances but losing a loved one in such a tragic and unexpected way is unbearable. Prayers are much appreciated.”

A photo of Brodie playing in French Riviera waters was posted on Facebook by his youth baseball league, Hill Country Baseball, which said it received it hours before the attack.

The post was followed by hundreds of comments, many offering condolences and prayers. Sean Copeland was remembered by several people in the baseball league as a loving and caring father.

A GoFundMe.com page was set up, seeking to raise $100,000 for the family.

U.S. Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, wrote on Twitter: “A truly heartbreaking loss of life in #Nice, my condolences and prayers are with the Copelands and the community of Lakeway, TX today.”

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York, David Brunnstrom in Moscow and Jon Herskovitz in Austin; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and James Dalgleish)

Truck attacker kills 84 celebrating France’s Bastille Day

A woman places a bouquet of flowers as people pay tribute near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores and injuring more who were celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday in Nice

By Sophie Sassard and Michel Bernouin

NICE, France (Reuters) – An attacker at the wheel of a heavy truck plowed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice, killing at least 84 people and injuring scores more in what President Francois Hollande called a terrorist act.

The driver, identified by police sources as a 31-year-old Tunisian-born Frenchman, also appeared to open fire before officers shot him dead. The man, named as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was not on the watch list of French intelligence services but was known to the police in connection with common crimes such as theft and violence, the sources said.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 18 people were in a critical condition after the attack on Thursday night, when the white truck zigzagged along the seafront Promenade des Anglais as a fireworks display marking the French national day ended just after 10:30 p.m. (4.30 p.m. ET).

The dead included several children, while the U.S. State Department said two American citizens had been killed. Russian student Viktoria Savchenko was also among the dead, according to the Moscow academy where she studied.

According to one city official, the rented truck careered on for up to 2 km (1.5 miles).

“People went down like nine-pins,” Jacques, who runs Le Queenie restaurant on the seafront, told France Info radio.

The attack seemed so far to be the work of a lone assailant.

Hollande said in a pre-dawn address that he was calling up military and police reservists to relieve forces worn out by enforcing a state of emergency begun in November after Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers struck Paris entertainment spots on a Friday evening, killing 130 people.

Only hours earlier he had announced the emergency would be lifted by the end of July. Following the attack, he said it would be extended by a further three months.

“France is filled with sadness by this new tragedy,” Hollande said. “There’s no denying the terrorist nature of this attack.”

Major events in France have been guarded by troops and armed police since the Nov. 13 attacks. But it appeared to have taken many minutes to halt the progress of the truck as it tore along pavements and a pedestrian zone.

One witness said she thought the attacker was firing a gun as he drove.

“I saw this enormous white truck go past at top speed,” said Suzy Wargniez, a local woman aged 65 who was watching from a cafe on the promenade. “It was shooting, shooting.”

A local government official said weapons and grenades were later found inside the vehicle which was made by Renault Trucks.

Nice-Matin newspaper said on Twitter that police were searching the attacker’s home in the Nice neighborhood of Abattoirs. It gave no source of the information.

(GRAPHIC: Map of Nice truck attack http://tmsnrt.rs/29LqLWk)

ISLAMIC STATE TARGETS FRANCE

After the Paris attacks, Islamic State said France and all nations following its path would remain at the top of its list of targets as long as they continued “their crusader campaign”, referring to action against the group in Iraq and Syria.

France is conducting air strikes and special forces operations against Islamic State, as well as training Iraqi government and Kurdish forces.

“We will further strengthen our actions in Syria and Iraq,” Hollande said, calling the tragedy – on the day France marks the 1789 revolutionary storming of the Bastille prison in Paris – an attack on liberty by fanatics who despised human rights.

France has also sent troops to west Africa to keep Islamist insurgents at bay. The country is home to the European Union’s biggest Muslim population, and critics say it has alienated some in the community through strict adherence to a secular culture that allows no place for religion in schools and civic life.

Dawn broke on Friday with pavements smeared with dried blood. Smashed children’s strollers, an uneaten baguette and other debris were strewn about the promenade. Small areas were screened off and what appeared to be bodies covered in blankets were visible through the gaps.

The truck was still where it came to rest, its windscreen riddled with bullets.

There had been no claim of responsibility on Friday morning.

The truck careered into families and friends listening to an orchestra or strolling above the beach on the Mediterranean Sea toward the grand, century-old Hotel Negresco.

Bystander Franck Sidoli said he had seen people go down. “Then the truck stopped, we were just five meters away. A woman was there, she lost her son. Her son was on the ground, bleeding,” he told Reuters at the scene.

The Paris attack in November was the bloodiest among a number in France and Belgium in the past two years. On Sunday, a weary nation had breathed a sigh of relief that the month-long Euro 2016 soccer tournament had ended without serious incident.

Four months ago, Belgian Islamists linked to the Paris attackers killed 32 people in Brussels.

Vehicle attacks have been used by isolated members of militant groups in recent years, notably in Israel, though never to such devastating effect.

Pop star Rihanna canceled a concert scheduled to be held in Nice on Friday. Riders on the Tour de France, the top event on the international cycling calendar, observed a minute’s silence before Thursday’s stage, held three hours’ drive northwest of Nice. Security has been tightened for the three-week race, which is watched by huge crowds lining the route around the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned what he said “appears to be a horrific terrorist attack”. Others joining him included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Pope Francis, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and officials from Spain, Sweden, the European Union, NATO and the U.N. Security Council.

Turkey, where Islamic State and Kurdish militants have staged a number of attacks in recent months, offered its condolences. “For terrorist groups, there is no difference between Turkey and France, Iraq and Belgium, and Saudi Arabia and the United States,” said President Tayyip Erdogan.

On social media, Islamic State supporters celebrated the high death toll and posted a series of images, one showing a beach purporting to be that of Nice with white stones arranged to read “IS is here to stay” in Arabic.

HIDING IN TERROR

Nice-Matin journalist Damien Allemand had been watching the firework display when the truck tore by. After taking cover in a cafe, he wrote on his paper’s website of what he saw: “Bodies every five meters, limbs … Blood. Groans.”

“The beach attendants were first on the scene. They brought water for the injured and towels, which they placed on those for whom there was no more hope.”

Officials have warned of the continuing risk of Islamist attacks in Europe. Reverses for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have raised fears it might strike again, using alienated young men from the continent’s Arab immigrant communities.

Nice, a city of 350,000, has a history as a flamboyant, aristocratic resort but is also a gritty metropolis. It has seen dozens of its Muslim residents travel to Syria to fight.

At Nice’s Pasteur hospital, medical staff were treating large numbers of injuries. Waiting for friends who were being operated on, 20-year-old Fanny told Reuters she had been lucky.

“We were all very happy, ready to celebrate all night long,” she said. “I saw a truck driving into the pedestrian area, going very fast and zig-zagging.

“The truck pushed me to the side. When I opened my eyes I saw faces I didn’t know and started asking for help … Some of my friends were not so lucky. They are having operations as we speak. It’s very hard, it’s all very traumatic.”

(Additional reporting by Matthias Blamont, Maya Nikolaeva, Michel Rose, Bate Felix, Brian Love adn Bate Felix in Paris, Alastair Macdonald in Brussels, Omar Fahmy in Cairo and Andreas Rinke in Ulaanbaatar; Writing by Alastair Macdonald, Andrew Callus and David Stamp; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Pravin Char)

Truck attacker kills over 70 in Nice Bastille Day crowd

French police forces and forensic officers stand next to a truck July 15, 2016 that ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday on the Promenade des Anglais killing at least 60 people in Nice, France, July 14. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

By Michel Bernouin

NICE, France (Reuters) – An attacker killed at least 73 people and injured scores when he drove a truck at high speed into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city of Nice late on Thursday, local media quoted officials as saying.

Police shot and killed the driver, who drove the heavy, long-distance truck at speed for well over 100 meters (yards) along the famed Promenade des Anglais seafront, hitting the mass of spectators late in the evening, regional official Sebastien Humbert told France Info radio.

The man had opened fire on the crowd, local government chief Christian Estrosi told BFM TV, and weapons and grenades were found inside the truck after he was killed.

“It’s a scene of horror,” local member of parliament Eric Ciotti told France Info, saying the truck had sped along the pavement fronting the Mediterranean, before being stopped by police after “mowing down several hundred people”.

Local broadcasters quoted officials as saying the preliminary death toll was 73. Other officials put the number of wounded as high as in the hundreds.

Humbert described it as a clear criminal attack, although the driver was not yet identified. Residents of the Mediterranean city close to the Italian border were advised to stay indoors. There was no sign of any other attack.

Almost exactly eight months ago Islamic State militants killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13, the bloodiest in a number of attacks in France and Belgium in the past two years. On Sunday, France had breathed a sigh of relief as the month-long Euro 2016 soccer tournament ended without a feared attack.

Police denied rumors on social media of a subsequent hostage-taking. Vehicle attacks have been used by isolated members of militant groups in recent years, notably in Israel, as well as in Europe, though never to such devastating effect.

HIDING IN TERROR

One woman told France Info she and others had fled in terror: “The lorry came zig-zagging along the street. We ran into a hotel and hid in the toilets with lots of people.”

Another woman told the station she was sheltering in a restaurant on the promenade with some 200 other people, where things had calmed down about two hours after the incident.

Nice-Matin journalist Damien Allemand reported from the scene as events unfolded: “People are running. It’s panic. He rode up onto the Prom and piled into the crowd … There are people covered in blood. There must be many injured.”

The paper published a photograph of a damaged, long-distance delivery truck, which it said was riddled with bullets and images of emergency services treating the injured. Social media carried images of those hit lying apparently lifeless in pools of blood, prompting police to ask people to stop such posts.

Regional government chief Estrosi has warned in the past of the risk of Islamist attacks in the region, following Islamic State bloodshed in Paris and Brussels over the past 18 months.

The city, with a population of some 350,000 and a history as a flamboyant but also gritty metropolis in the sun, has seen some of its Muslim residents travel to Syria to fight, a path taken by previous Islamic State attackers in Europe.

French President Francois Hollande, who was in the south of France at the time of the attack but raced back to Paris to the national crisis center, had hours earlier said that a state of emergency put in place after the Paris attacks in November would not be extended when it expires on July 26.

“We can’t extend the state of emergency indefinitely, it would make no sense. That would mean we’re no longer a republic with the rule of law applied in all circumstances,” Hollande told journalists in a traditional Bastille Day interview.

His interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, was expected in Nice overnight, a source in the ministry said.

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by James Dalgleish and Sandra Maler)

Truck attacker kills dozens in Nice, driver shot dead

An injured individual is seen on the ground after at least 30 people were killed in Nice, France, when a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday July 14, 2016.

By Michel Rose

PARIS (Reuters) – At least 30 people were killed and 100 injured in the French Riviera city of Nice late on Thursday when a truck ploughed into crowds watching a fireworks display on France’s Bastille Day national holiday in a criminal attack, a local official said.

The driver, who drove at high speed for over 100 meters (yards) along the famed Promenade des Anglais seafront before hitting the mass of spectators, was shot dead, sub-prefect Sebastien Humbert told France Infos radio.

Humbert described it as a clear criminal attack, although the driver was not yet identified. Residents of the Mediterranean city close to the Italian border were advised to stay indoors. There was no sign of any other attack.

Almost exactly eight months ago Islamic State militants killed 130 people in Paris. On Sunday, France had breathed a sigh of relief as the month-long Euro 2016 soccer tournament ended without a feared attack.

“Dear Nicois,” local mayor Christian Estrosi tweeted, “The driver of a truck appears to have killed dozens of people. Stay at home for the time being. More news to follow.”

Regional newspaper Nice Matin quoted its reporter at the scene saying there were many injured people and blood on the street. It published a photograph of a damaged, long-distance delivery truck, which it said was riddled with bullets and images of emergency services treating the injured.

Damien Allemand, the paper’s correspondent, was quoted as saying: “People are running. It’s panic. He rode up onto the Prom and piled into the crowd … There are people covered in blood. There must be many injured.”

Social media carried images of people lying apparently lifeless in pools of blood.

U.S. government agencies have received constant reports of Islamic State threats to attack France and those threats are regarded as current, a U.S. security official said. However, two U.S. officials said they had no information at this point about whether militants were involved in the Nice incident.

CNN said it has spoken to a witness, identified as an American pilot, who saw the truck ramming the crowd. The witness said the driver mowed people down, accelerating as he hit them. The witness said there was only one person in the truck.

Local mayor Estrosi has warned in the past of the risk of Islamist attacks in the region, following Islamic State bloodshed in Paris and Brussels over the past 18 months.

French President Francois Hollande, who was in the south of France at the time, had hours earlier said a state of emergency put in place after the Paris attacks in November would not be extended when it was due to expire on July 26.

“We can’t extend the state of emergency indefinitely, it would make no sense. That would mean we’re no longer a republic with the rule of law applied in all circumstances,” Hollande told journalists in a traditional Bastille Day interview.

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by James Dalgleish)