Nice attack: French police question several as details emerge about suspect Mohamed Bouhlel

Updated

French investigators have detained several people as they piece together details of the Nice massacre and work to shed light on the motives of the Tunisian who rammed a truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day.

Key points: Attacker visited promenade on the two days before attack, AFP sources say

People affected by tragedy still searching for answers, news of loved ones

French Interior Minister says attacker may have been radicalised "very quickly"

The attack killed 84 people of all ages and nationalities, including 10 children and teenagers who were out enjoying a fireworks display on the city's famed promenade, and injured scores of others.

The driver has been named as Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old who lived in the French Riviera city and was described by neighbours as a loner who never responded to their greetings.

A source close to the probe told the AFP news agency Lahouaiej-Bouhlel visited the Nice promenade with his rented truck on the two days before the massacre.

He sent a text message just before the attack in which he expressed "satisfaction at having obtained a 7.65-millimetre pistol and discusses the supply of other weapons", the source said.

During the attack Lahouaiej-Bouhlel fired at police who sprayed his rampaging truck with gunfire, eventually killing him.

An Albanian suspected of providing the driver with the pistol was arrested in Nice on Sunday.

Besides the Albanian, six other people were being held over the carnage.

Lahouaiej-Bouhlel's estranged wife, the mother of his three children, was released on Sunday after two days of questioning.

Anti-terror prosecutor Francois Molins said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had had various brushes with the law since 2010 for making threats, theft and violence, including a conviction in March this year for which he was given a six-month suspended sentence.

But while he had a record of being a petty criminal, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had never appeared on the radar of intelligence services for links to radical Islam.

There has been no evidence yet linking Lahouaiej-Bouhlel to the Islamic State group, which claimed the attack.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the father-of-three "seemed to have been radicalised very quickly, from what his friends and family" had told police.

The attacker's father, who lives in Msaken, eastern Tunisia, said his son had suffered from depression and had "no links" to religion.

Some of Lahouaiej-Bouhlel's other relatives and friends described the delivery driver as someone who drank heavily and never attended the local mosque.

France is a prime target of IS, for its role in fighting the group in Iraq and Syria, its cherished secular values, and what the Government has admitted is a "social and ethnic apartheid" that alienates its large Muslim community.

Hundreds of French jihadists have gone to fight alongside IS in Iraq and Syria.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian noted that IS had recently repeated calls for supporters to "directly attack the French, Americans, wherever they are and by whatever means".

"Even when Daesh is not the organiser, Daesh breathes life into the terrorist spirit that we are fighting," he said.

In Nice, many people were still desperately looking for news of their loved ones among the dead and 121 still hospitalised.

"We have no news, neither good nor bad," said Lithuanian Johanna, who was looking for her two friends, aged 20.

Juliette Meadel, State Secretary for Victims' Support, conceded the process was "long and cruel".

At least 10 children were among the dead, as well as tourists from the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland and Germany.

AFP

Topics: terrorism, murder-and-manslaughter, law-crime-and-justice, crime, france

First posted