France in shock and grief after Nice carnage

French authorities were trying to determine yesterday whether a Tunisian who killed at least 84 people by ploughing a truck into Bastille Day crowds had acted alone or with accomplices, but said the attack bore the hallmarks of militants.
Thursday night’s attack in the Riviera city of Nice plunged France into new grief and fear just eight months after gunmen killed 130 people in Paris.
Those attacks, and one in Brussels four months ago, have shocked Western Europe, already anxious over security challenges from mass immigration, open borders and pockets of  radicalism.
The truck zigzagged along the city’s seafront Promenade des Anglais as a fireworks display marking the French national day ended.
It careered into families and friends listening to an orchestra or strolling above the Mediterranean beach towards the century-old grand Hotel Negresco.
At least 10 children were among the dead.
Of the scores of injured, 25 were on life support, authorities said yesterday.
Witness Franck Sidoli said he had watched people mown down before the truck finally stopped just five metres away from him.
“A woman was there, she lost her son. Her son was on the ground, bleeding,” he told Reuters at the scene.
The driver, 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, shot dead by officers at the scene, was known to police for petty crimes but was not on a watch list of suspected militants.
He had one criminal conviction, for road rage, and was sentenced to probation three months ago for throwing a wooden pallet at another driver.
The investigation “will try to determine whether he benefited from accomplices”, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said. “It will also try to find out whether Mohamed Laouaiej Bouhlel had ties to Islamist terrorist organisations, “ he said.
“Although Thursday’s attack has not been claimed, this sort of thing fits in perfectly with calls for murder from such terrorist organisations,” Molins added.
Bouhlel’s ex-wife was in police custody, Molins said. He had three children. Police found one pistol and various fake weapons in his truck.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the evening news that Bouhlel was “one way or another” linked to radical Islam. “Yes, it is a terrorist act and we shall see what links there are with terrorist organisations.”
Yet despite numerous French officials from President Francois Hollande down describing it as a terrorist attack, they still had not disclosed any direct evidence linking Bouhlel with extremists. And Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve acknowledged as much.

Qatar condemns ‘criminal attack’
Qatar yesterday expressed its “strong condemnation and denunciation” of the “heinous criminal act” which took place in the French city of Nice. The Foreign Ministry, in a statement, stressed that “this criminal act which targeted innocent civilians is contrary to all human, ethical values and religions”, reiterating “the State of Qatar’s stance rejecting violence and terrorism whatever their motives and causes”. The statement “stressed Qatar’s solidarity with the friendly Republic of France”.
The statement expressed “Qatar’s sincere condolences to the families of the victims as well as the French government and people, wishing the injured a speedy recovery”.
HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday sent a cable of condolences to French President  Francois Hollande on the victims of the terrorist attack, “expressing his strong condemnation of this brutal crime that left dozens of innocents killed and injured and has nothing to do with the Islamic faith and contradicts with all the heavenly religions and human values”, the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) said. The cable stressed “the State of Qatar’s solidarity with the friendly French Republic against terrorism and called for intensifying international efforts to fight it and eradicate it”.
HH the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani and HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani have also sent  cables of condolences and consolation to President Hollande on the victims of the terrorist attack, QNA said.