France calls up reservist forces after Nice attack

Associated Press

NICE, France

France called up thousands of reserve security forces Friday as authorities tried to determine why a Tunisian deliveryman known only to be a petty criminal took the wheel of a 19-ton truck and plunged through a terrified seaside crowd on Bastille Day, leaving 84 people dead and more than 200 wounded.

Witnesses described how Mohamed Bouhlel barreled his truck in a zigzag path down a crowded Nice promenade, aiming directly for children, for mothers pushing strollers and for families cowering behind plastic benches.

President Francois Hollande extended a national state of emergency that stretched back to the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and was claimed by the Islamic State group.

The state of emergency had been due to be scaled back but instead was extended for three months. The government tapped its operational reserve of 25,000 – composed mainly of ex-military or former gendarmes – to relieve its tired officers, stretched by month after month of state-of-emergency policing.

Hollande said the attack was “undeniably terrorist in nature,” but prosecutors said the 31-year-old driver who lived in Nice wasn’t known to intelligence services.

No group claimed responsibility for Thursday night’s slaughter of tourists and locals packing the upscale seafront, where an estimated 30,000 had just watched a Bastille Day fireworks show.

They fanned out to enjoy nighttime street artists, arcade games and food stalls or strolls back to their hotels beside the gentle Mediterranean tide. Then Bouhlel drove his truck into the sidewalk and turned a celebration into a terrifying dash for survival.

Cyril Croisy said he saw the truck accelerate into the first crowds outside Nice’s landmark Negresso Hotel, aiming straight for a stand selling candy to children.

He said he tried to help the wounded, including a woman with catastrophic injuries.

“I was there when her heart stopped,” said Croisy, his eyes welling with tears as he spoke. The 40-year-old Parisian suffered a broken arm while fleeing the scene and jumping from the pedestrian promenade to the beach below.

Ten of the 84 dead were children. Of the 202 injured, 52 were critically hurt.

Among the dead were immigrants and tourists from many nations, including Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland and the United States. Two Scots were among the dozens listed as missing.

French prosecutor Francois Molins said Bouhlel had a loaded handgun, three replica weapons and an empty grenade in the truck, which he had rented three days earlier. Police considered him a petty criminal suspected since 2010 of various threats and acts of theft, vandalism and violent conduct, he said.

In March, he was convicted for a road-rage crime when he struck another motorist with a wooden pallet but received a suspended six-month sentence because it was his first proven offense.

Molins said Bouhlel was “totally unknown to intelligence services ... and was never placed on a watch list for radicalization.”

Hollande’s government, whose popularity is plumbing record lows in polls, has been buffeted by allegations that France’s intelligence services have failed to get a handle on the country’s jihadist threat. France has known for years that it is a top Islamic State target, and France also is the biggest source for European recruits for IS, with more than 1,000 fighting in Syria or Iraq.

Hollande, who flew to Nice visit the injured in Pasteur Hospital, declared three days of national mourning from today.

He was booed by angry members of the public as his motorcade passed the scene of the slaughter. Earlier he addressed the nation live on television and sought to provide a rationale for the horror.

“Why Nice?” Hollande asked. “Because it is a city that is known worldwide, one of the most beautiful cities on the planet. Why on the 14th of July? Because it is a celebration of freedom.”

It’s unclear how quickly the volunteers and part-time professionals will be seen on the streets of Nice or anywhere else after their callup. Interior Ministry officials declined to comment on the timing of the deployment.

Bouhlel’s attack was stopped thanks to a handful of police who pursued the truck on foot and, possibly, by motorcycle as he plowed through the first crowds outside the Negresso.