French police arrest two more in connection with Nice attack

Flowers commemorating the spot where someone was killed in the the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

Within minutes the attack was over, with the driver dead in a hail of police gunfire.

The site is also becoming a platform for anger at the attacker. Garbage collectors threw the refuse into the back of a garbage truck.

Some of Nice’s beachside restaurants reopened for business, and the final section of the road was set to reopen to traffic following three days of official mourning.

Photographs found on the attacker’s mobile phone showed he staked out the promenade in the days before he struck, he added.

Alfano’s spokeswoman didn’t immediately return a call for comment, and anti-terrorism police in Bari didn’t immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

While authorities have said little publicly about their investigation, a French security official told The Associated Press on Sunday that Bouhlel sold his vehicle just before the attack, which ended only when he was killed by police.

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was described as “someone who did not practise the Muslim religion”.

“Daesh gives unstable individuals an ideological kit that allows them to make sense of their acts. this is probably what happened in Nice’s case”, Valls said, referring to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The claim of responsibility, released through the group’s Aamaq news agency, could not be independently verified.

Before and after a minute of silence held to pay respects to the 84 dead, numerous thousands gathered in the south-coast resort city of Nice chanted “resign, resign” at Manuel Valls, the Socialist prime minister.

Cazeneuve pointed out that the Tunisian perpetrator, identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, used a new method to carry out his crime. “One just before the Euros could have been particularly deadly”. That attack followed one in January in which gunmen killed journalists working for Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication targeted over cartoons mocking Islam.

Hollande initially proposed a three-month extension but said on Tuesday he was “open to a further extension of three months”, making a total of six months.

Another student was injured and continues to receive treatment.

She said Stratton can not speak and does not remember the attack, “which is better”.

The attack has hit tourism hard on the Cote d’Azur, where Nice – France’s second most-visited city after Paris – is situated.

Defence and intelligence leaders gathered at the Elysee Palace, the official residence of the French president, for talks about the atrocity, the third mass casualty attack against France in 18 months. Numerous dead and 308 injured were children.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls dismissed those suggestions. Buildings stood silent across the country.

Investigators are looking into how Bouhlel acquired the cache of weapons.

Sadok Bouhlel spoke in the driver’s hometown of Msaken, Tunisia. The uncle said he learned about the Algerian recruiter from extended family members who live in Nice.

According to Yasmina Touaibia, a political scientist at the University of Nice, the region is home to more than a dozen informal mosques known to spread radical and fundamentalist ideas.

While previous attacks saw grand displays of national unity, there was no semblance of cohesion after the Nice massacre, with Sarkozy joining a long line of opposition politicians who have accused the government of not doing enough to protect the French.

After crisis talks in Paris, 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”. French warplanes have been involved in the operation in Iraq and to a lesser degree in Syria.

Cazeneuve says: “These links for now have not been established by the investigation”.

But Monthir, Bouhlel’s father, said his son had not shown signs of religious extremism, despite suffering from mental health problems.