Attack In Nice: Suspect Had Help From Accomplices, Planned Ahead

French police and security forces examine the remains of the delivery truck that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove into a crowd of people on Bastille Day.

But on Thursday, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said investigators found images in Bouhlel’s phone suggesting he was premeditating an attack as far back as a year ago.

Police have uncovered thousands of calls and messages between Lahouaiej Bouhlel, and five accomplices, after going through his social media accounts, laptop and phone records.

On April 4 this year, Tunisian Chokri C., aged 37, sent Bouhlel a Facebook message reading: “Load the truck with 2 000 tonnes of iron… release the brakes my friend and I will watch”. Molins later said that investigators believe Bouhlel obtained weapons used in the attack from “Ramzi A.” and from the two Albanian suspects, whom he described as a couple.

Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had been portrayed as a misfit with no interest in religion who became obsessed with terrorism and continually looked at atrocities on the internet.

President Francois Hollande announced on Friday that France would send artillery to Iraq next month for the fight against IS.

The newspaper Libération reported Thursday that only one municipal police vehicle was positioned at the spot where Lahouaiej Bouhlel barreled through and on to the promenade, and it said that although state and city officials had agreed on – and stuck to – a security plan for Bastille Day, the government misrepresented those measures after the attack.

Authorities investigate the truck that ploughed through Bastille Day revellers in the French resort city of Nice, on July 14, 2016.

Be proactive – Use the “Flag as Inappropriate” link at the upper right corner of each comment to let us know of abusive posts. They are accused of providing Bouhlel with the gun he fired at police officers before he was shot dead.

Lawyer Jean-Pascal Padovani said his client, Ramzi A.and Bouhlel were from the world of ‘small-scale delinquence….

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel appeared to be a 31-year-old father-of-three, who was obsessed with keeping fit, martial arts and salsa dancing. “I am glad they brought in Allah’s soldiers to finish the job”.

French officials defended the government’s security measures in Nice on the night of the attack, even as the interior minister acknowledged that national police were not, as he had claimed before, stationed at the entrance to the closed-off boulevard.

Just hours after he warned the French had to learn to live with terror, the Islamic State (IS) group – which claimed the Nice attack – posted a video showing two French-speaking jihadists threatening more attacks against the country. Authorities also found a photograph of a May 15 article on Captagon, which is described by Forbes as a drug used by militants in Syria to “endure battle”.

In a related development, France’s lawmakers voted Wednesday to extend the state of emergency for another six months, continuing greater police search-and-arrest powers without advance clearance from judges.