The attack, which came eight months and a day after Islamic State
gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris, appeared so far
to be the work of a lone assailant.
Counter-terrorist
investigators were seeking to identify the driver, who a local
government official said opened fire before police shot him dead. The
official said weapons and grenades were found inside the 25-tonne,
unmarked truck.
The attack, which came eight months and a day after Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris, appeared so far to be the work of a lone assailant.
Newspaper Nice-Matin quoted unidentified sources as saying the driver was a 31-year-old local of Tunisian origin.
The
truck careered for hundreds of metres (yards) along the famed Promenade
des Anglais seafront, slamming into spectators watching the fireworks,
listening to an orchestra or strolling above the beach towards the
grand, century-old Hotel Negresco.
"It's a scene of horror," a local member of parliament, Eric Ciotti, told France Info radio, saying the truck had "mown down several hundred people." Local government leader Christian Estrosi put the death toll at 77, while BFM TV later put it at 80. An Interior Ministry spokesman said "several dozen" had died.
Nice-Matin said 42 people were in critical condition and many others injured.
"People went down like ninepins," Jacques, who runs Le Queenie restaurant on the seafront, told France Info.
"I saw people go down," bystander Franck Sidoli,
who was visibly shocked, told Reuters at the scene. "Then the truck
stopped, we were just five metres away. A woman was there, she lost her
son. Her son was on the ground, bleeding,"
Nice-Matin posted photographs of the truck, its windshield starred by a score of bullets and its radiator grille destroyed.
Since
the Islamic State attacks last year, major public events in France have
been guarded by troops and armed police, but it appeared to have taken
some minutes to halt the progress of the deadly truck as it tore along
pavements and a pedestrian zone.
Police told
residents of the city, located 30 km (20 miles) from the Italian border,
to stay indoors as they conducted further operations, though there was
no sign of any other attack.
President Francois Hollande,
who raced back to Paris from the south of France after the attack, was
due to address a sleepless nation on television at 3:30 a.m. (0130 GMT).
Hours earlier, in a traditional Bastille Day interview, he had said an
eight-month state of emergency might end in two weeks time.
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, a weary nation had breathed a collective sigh of relief as the month-long Euro 2016 soccer tournament across France ended without a feared attack.
Four months ago, Belgian Islamists linked to the Paris attackers killed 32 people in Brussels.
Police
denied rumours on social media of a subsequent hostage-taking in Nice.
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.
U.S. President Barack Obama
said in a statement: "On behalf of the American people, I condemn in
the strongest terms what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack in
Nice, France, which killed and wounded dozens of innocent civilians."
We condemn this act of terror on the people of France, as one wise man talk before, na only one race matter and that na the human race...
#itakethisoneP
No comments:
Post a Comment