A large number of people were present at the nighttime celebrations, which included fireworks on the city's famous promenade. Bastille Day, known locally as La fête nationale, is the French national holiday that commemorates the 1789 Battle of Bastille during the French Revolution. Some witnesses reported hearing gunfire, as well, as the box-type commercial truck ran people over.
Le président @fhollande s'est entretenu avec le Premier ministre @ManuelValls au sujet des événements de #Nice pic.twitter.com/kb6G3siyHp
— Élysée (@Elysee) July 14, 2016
Translation: President Hollande meets with Prime Minister Manuel Valls about the events in #Nice
French soldiers arrive on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees before the start of the annual Bastille Day military parade in Paris on Thursday. Later, during a fireworks display, dozens were injured and killed when a truck began running over crowds of people.
"We were enjoying the celebrations when we suddenly saw people running everywhere and tables being pushed down by the movement of panic," teenage witness Daphne Burandé said. "I thought it was a false alert. But then, people were still running." ABC News reported that the scene included several police officers standing around the truck, which was riddled with bullet holes. Nice's former mayor, Christian Estrosi, told French media that the driver of the truck fired a weapon as he drove, and that police officers exchanged fire with him and killed him. He also said "the truck was loaded with arms, loaded with grenades."
French President Francois Hollande vowed to increase security measures in multiple ways, telling reporters "France is afflicted, but she is strong, and she will always be stronger than the fanatics who want to strike her today." Hollande continued, "I have decided to first maintain a high level of police forces, with 10,000 military staff, as well as our police forces. I have also decided to ask military volunteers to join and help our police forces. "I have decided that the state of emergency which was supposed to end on July 26 will be extended by three months," he said. "Nothing will lead us to give in to our will to fight against terrorism. We are going to strengthen our efforts in Syria and Iraq against those who are attacking us on our very soil," Holland said.
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"At this time, we are aware of and can confirm two US citizens were killed in the attack in Nice on July 14, 2016," spokesman John Kirby said. "We express our sincere condolences to the family and friends of those killed." The statement was issued as US Secretary of State John Kerry was in Moscow for talks on Syria with his Russian counterpart.
Nice Truck Attack - Killer Was French-Tunisian Who Was Known To Police
Kirby did not identify the two dead but added the United States was providing "all possible consular assistance" to its citizens. A Texas-based newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, reported that 51-year-old Sean Copeland and his 11-year-old son Brodie were among those killed in Nice, citing their friends and relatives. A gunman drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day on Thursday night in the French Riviera city of Nice in what authorities have called a "terrorist" attack.
Bodies of victims covered by sheets at the scene of a truck attack in Nice, southern France
Kirby's announcement came after US President Barack Obama strongly condemned what he said was a "horrific terrorist attack" and said the United States stood "in solidarity and partnership with France." "Our embassy in Paris is making every effort to account for the welfare of US citizens in Nice," Kirby said. "Any US citizens in Nice should contact friends and family directly to inform them of their well being."
Two Americans killed in Nice attack: State Dept
The French Rivera is a renowned playground for the cosmopolitan elite, but what is less well-known is that it is also a breeding ground for jihadists. Move a mile or two from the Nice coastline and its marinas, and you find bleak housing estates where disaffected youths of immigrant origin are vulnerable to radical Islam. In recent years, 55 people are estimated to have left the region for Syria, including 11 members of the same family travelling together in 2014. In terms of reported cases of radicalisation, the Alpes-Maritimes area is second only to the notorious "93" district north of Paris.
Dead bodies covered with blue sheets are pictured on the Promenade des Anglais seafront in the French Riviera city of Nice
Imene Ouissi, a 22-year-old student who volunteers for a women's group in the town of Vallauris, west of Nice, noticed in 2012 that local youths were becoming fascinated by slick recruitment videos produced by Islamic State. "It was better than a film. It made them dream," she says. "In gaming you can shoot again and again, but this was real. And you can do that for god! They found it fantastic."
'You will never succeed here'
At the same time, self-styled preachers emerged with a message targeted at disaffected Muslim youths. Playing on widespread feelings of resentment about poverty and discrimination, they told their audience that they would always be treated as foreigners in France. In Vallauris, one charismatic figure pitched up in a high-rise housing estate in 2010. People came from all over the region to hear him preach every Friday, until, after three years, the authorities dismantled his makeshift mosque. "What he said really shook me," Imene Ouissi recalls. "I had gone there because everyone was talking about it. He spoke the language of the kids, so they identified with him. His message was: you must not stay in a land of villains, you will never succeed here. You must go to a Muslim country."
Kamel, a youth worker in the Nice area, says one of the reasons for the recent success of the Salafist ideology that has inspired jihad, is that it provides a ready and easy way of justifying the actions of petty criminals. "The kids are told that they are in a land of unbelievers, so when they steal and attack people it is justifiable; the petty criminal is turned into a holy warrior, and is promised status, sexual gratification and eternal life." At a time when identity feeds on a sense of victimhood, past trauma is often used to stoke current tensions. In the Nice area, Algeria's war of independence in the 1950s and early 60s casts a long shadow. Many former French colonists who were summarily expelled from Algeria settled in Nice. Their political influence and lingering resentment at the French state that let them down is still felt in the strong presence of the far-right National Front there, Kamel says.
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Both Al-Wahda, which only has a limited space of 160 square meters for its worshippers, and the next door Al-Baraka Mosque, are refusing entry to non-Muslims for the prayers services. But once prayers were over Al-Wahda’s imam, Sheikh Abdulmonam, initially hesitant at speaking to a Newsweek reporter, gave me permission to enter the house of worship so that we could talk about the actions of Mohamed Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian that the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) on Saturday claimed as one their own. After Bouhlel mowed down hundreds of locals and foreigners celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais on Thursday night, killing at least 84 people, Muslim communities across France are once again coming to terms with a mass killing carried out in their religion’s name. “What happened on Thursday has nothing at all to do with Islam because the person who did it, even according to his outward acts, wasn’t a Muslim,” the 46-year-old Abdulmonam says in Arabic, speaking through a translator. He declined to give his last name. “He smoked, he didn’t pray, he didn’t fast, he didn’t do all these things that Muslims should do. It was a horrible crime.”
Worshippers outside the al-Wahda prayer room (far right) and the al-Baraka Mosque (far left) in the city center of Nice after Friday prayers, July 16 2016. Members of the Muslim community said that Mohamed Bouhlel was "going straight to hell" for his truck attack that left at least 84 people dead on the city's Promenade des Anglais
Nice’s Muslims, like Abdulmonam, are adamant that Bouhlel does not represent the community in any way; he was a deviant who should never be termed a Muslim, they say. Guillaume Gourves, 35, a robed French Muslim convert and worshipper at the Al-Baraka mosque, says that Bouhlel “is going straight to hell” for carrying out such a heinous act, rejecting the notion that ISIS represents Islam and Muslims. “They just represent themselves. Islam is salam, it’s peace,” he says. “This man apparently wasn’t even doing Ramadan or the prayer. He just thinks, ‘Oh let’s kill people.’ Is that what is Islam? No, it is not.”
Lhouasaine Khalfaoui, a 41-year-old French-Moroccan butcher at the Boucherie Atlas, a minute’s walk from al-Wahda, was a neighbor of the first person killed in the attack, a 60-year-old Muslim mother-of-six, Fatima Charrihi. Khalfaoui points to a fly on the counter in the shop and says that a true Muslim wouldn’t hurt it. “One person dead, is all of the community dead in the Quran. This was not a Muslim,” he says. “He did not practice the religion. No Ramadan, no prayer. This was an animal. This is a contradiction with Islam.”
Police officers, firefighters and rescue workers are seen at the site of an attack on the Promenade des Anglais on July 15, 2016, after a truck drove into a crowd watching a fireworks display in the French Riviera town of Nice. The city's Muslim community has rejected Bouhlel as a deviant who should not be associated with Islam.
France has now suffered through three major attacks committed by radical Islamists since January 2015; the country’s Muslim community is steeling itself for a backlash. “When these things happen in France, we always become the victims because we are one of the weakest sections of society here,” Abdulmonam says. “When we saw the prime minister of France [Manuel Valls] come out and say it was a terrorist attack, we think he did that to placate the far-right so they wouldn’t rise up against him, but in reality this attack has nothing to do with Islam.”
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The arrest of the teenager on Saturday came two days after police moved in on what the Paris prosecutor says was a group of female “commandos” arrested after an aborted attack at Notre Dame Cathedral and another possible attack. Those arrested included a 15-year-old girl, the daughter of one of three women arrested south of Paris. A security official said Sunday that France’s intelligence services “detected a threat” and a judicial official said police moved into action Saturday fearing a planned attack this weekend.
The officials weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the arrest and asked not to be named. Both said the boy’s arrest was not linked to the arrests last week of four women, the 15-year-old daughter of one of the women and a man. So far, one woman has been charged. Intelligence agents suspected the boy planned to carry out a knife attack in a public place this weekend, the judicial official said, refusing to name a spot where it was thought the attack might occur. The official said the teenager, born in December 2000, is 15 — not 16 as officials previously said.
France is in a state of emergency after three attacks this year, including the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice that killed 86 people. That followed two waves of attacks last year, notably the Nov. 13 attacks on restaurants, bars, a concert hall and stadium that left 130 people dead. News of the arrest came shortly after Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Sunday that “every day attacks are foiled … (including) as we speak.”
Valls said nearly 15,000 people in France are being tracked because they are suspected of being in the process of radicalization, while 1,350 are under investigation — 293 of them for alleged links with a terrorism network. “Today the threat is at a maximum, and we are a target,” Valls said on Europe 1 radio. “Every day intelligence services, police foil attacks, dismantle networks, track terrorists.”
Despite the tracking, with plots uncovered, “There will be new attacks. There will be innocent victims,” the prime minister said. The teenage boy had been placed under house arrest this summer due to France’s state of emergency, after a search of his home, the judicial official said. It wasn’t known what was found in the search.
‘We are a target:’ France warns of multiplying terror threats as 15-year-old boy arrested in feared attack
"The threat is maximal," Manuel Valls said in an interview with the Europe 1 radio station. "We have seen it again in the past few days, the past few hours, and even as we speak. Every day intelligence services, police and gendarmerie thwart attacks and dismantle Iraqi-Syrian networks." Valls said authorities were monitoring around 15,000 people in France who they believe are in the process of radicalization. Earlier, French officials had said 10,000 people were on their "fiche S" list, used to flag radicalized individuals considered a threat to national security. "We have almost 700 jihadists -- French or French residents -- fighting in Iraq and Syria, " Valls said. "Out of these 700 jihadists, I'd like to remind (people) that there are 275 women and several dozens (of) minors," he added. An additional 196 French jihadists died in Iraq and Syria, he said.
Did terrorists plan to attack the Notre Dame cathedral?
On Saturday, French authorities arrested a juvenile on suspicion of preparing an imminent terror attack involving "knives" and "bladed weapons," a source told CNN. The prime minister's warning of imminent attacks also follows last week's thwarted ISIS plot to attack the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. On Saturday, French authorities charged a woman whose name was given as Ornella G, in connection to the plot. She was charged with "terrorist criminal association to commit crimes against people" and "attempted assassinations as an organized gang in connection with a terrorist enterprise," according to the Paris prosecutors' office. Ornella G and three other women were arrested after a car containing five gas cylinders was found abandoned near the cathedral, a major tourist draw in central Paris.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Friday the women were part of a cell directed by ISIS from Syria. One of the women had a letter in her purse swearing allegiance to ISIS, Molins said. Another woman had been engaged to be married to two known terrorists. That woman, named as Sarah H., was due to marry Larossi Aballa, the man who killed two police officers in Magnanville, France, in June, according to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins.
Police officers stand guard as they take part in a raid in Boussy-Saint-Antoine
When Aballa was shot by police, she was then supposed to marry Adel Kermiche, who killed a priest in Saint Etienne du Rouvray, France, in July. Kermiche was also killed. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said earlier this week that the women were radicalized and likely had been planning an "imminent and violent" attack. France has been under a state of emergency since the Paris terror attacks in November, and authorities have struggled to monitor thousands of domestic radicals on their radar.
French PM: Terror threat is 'maximal' - CNN.com
