NICE, France — The Islamic State claimed Saturday that the man who attacked the seaside city of Nice, France, was one of the group’s “soldiers.’’ France’s defense minister promptly blamed the terrorist network for inspiring the assault, while its top law enforcement official said the attacker, who was not previously known to intelligence agencies, may have “radicalized himself very quickly.’’
The attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, carried out the assault Thursday evening using a 19-ton refrigerated truck and an automatic pistol. France, traumatized by three major terrorist assaults in 19 months, began three days of national mourning Saturday. The death toll from the Nice attack remained at 84, but the number of injured rose to 303, of whom 121 were in hospitals, including 26 in intensive care.
The Islamic State had kept silent on the Nice attack until Saturday morning, when it declared, in a bulletin issued in Arabic and in English on its Amaq News Agency channel: “Executor of the deadly operation in Nice, France, was a soldier of the Islamic State. He executed the operation in response to calls to target citizens of coalition nations, which fight the Islamic State.’’
The claim must be greeted with caution because there was yet no evidence suggesting that the driver was radicalized, or had even been exposed to the Islamic State’s propaganda.
After a husband and wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December, the Amaq News Agency described them as “two supporters,’’ making it clear that their actions were not directed by the organization. But after a gunman, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, last month, having pledged loyalty to the group, the organization called him a “fighter.’’
In a statement Saturday on its radio station, the Islamic State referred to Lahouaiej Bouhlel as “a soldier’’ who had responded to the group’s call “to target states participating in the crusader coalition that fights the caliphate.’’
In 2014, the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, called on the group’s followers to attack Westerners in retaliation for strikes by the United States-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He has repeatedly singled out France, which is part of the coalition, as a main enemy.
However, no evidence has emerged that Lahouaiej Bouhlel got training or orders from the Islamic State, unlike the perpetrators of attacks in and around Paris on Nov. 13 and Brussels on March 22. The Islamic State has blurred the line between operations planned and carried out by its core fighters and those carried out by sympathizers inspired, only at a distance, to commit violence.
But Saturday, France’s defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said: “I remind you that Daesh’s ideologue, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, has for several weeks repeated calls to attack directly, even individually, Frenchmen, in particular, or Americans, wherever they are, by any means necessary,’’ using an Arabic name for the Islamic State.
“It is murder, and Daesh’s claim of responsibility comes later, as has happened in other recent events,’’ Le Drian added. “Even if Daesh doesn’t do the organizing, Daesh inspires this terrorist spirit, against which we are fighting.’’
Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, a native of Tunisia, had a history of petty crime going back to 2010. He received a six-month suspended sentence this year for assaulting a motorist, but was not on the radar of French intelligence agencies. Indeed, he seemed more like a surly misfit — he beat his wife, until she threw him out — than a prospective terrorist.
The country’s top law enforcement official, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, said Saturday: “The individual who committed this absolutely despicable, unspeakable crime was not known by the intelligence services, as he had not stood out over the past years — whether through court convictions or through his activity — for support of radical Islamist ideology.’’
Cazeneuve added: “It seems that he radicalized himself very quickly. In any case, these are the first elements that have come to light through the testimony of his acquaintances.’’
In Msaken, Tunisia, the attacker’s father, Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej Bouhlel, told Agence France-Presse on Friday that his son had depression, but that he “had almost no links to religion,’’ and that “he didn’t pray, he didn’t fast, he drank alcohol, and even used drugs.’’
The elder Lahouaiej Bouhlel said of his son, “From 2002 to 2004, he had problems that caused a nervous breakdown.’’
“He would become angry, and he shouted,’’ he said, adding, “He would break anything he saw in front of him.’’
The son was prescribed medication for emotional problems, the elder Lahouaiej Bouhlel said, adding that his son was “always alone, always depressed’’ and often silent. The father said he and his family had almost no contact with his son since he left for France. The son appears to have arrived in Nice around 2005 and to have returned to Tunisia for a sister’s wedding in 2012.
However, The Huffington Post quoted Rabab Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a sister of the attacker, as saying the brother “did not drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, but he also did not pray and never entered a mosque in his life.’’ She added: “He was just not stable psychologically and mentally. His wife and her mother both complained about his violent behavior toward her.’’
Four people acquainted with Lahouaiej Bouhlel are in police custody, along with his estranged wife.
People returned to the beach Saturday, although in far smaller numbers than in the days before the attack. But signs of a shaken city were still in evidence. Local officials observed a moment of silence at a makeshift memorial on the Promenade des Anglais, the site of the carnage.
The promenade reopened to vehicular traffic Saturday afternoon; it had been closed to traffic for the Bastille Day fireworks celebration and then, after the terrorist attack, it remained closed as it was turned, in effect, into a 1.5-mile crime scene.
