On Saturday, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in Nice where a truck rammed into a gathering of people celebrating Bastille day, killing 84 and injuring hundreds, ISIS-run Amaq news agency reports.
Amaq claimed the Nice attacker responded to the call to attack countries of the anti-ISIS coalition, reports Conflict News.
This may mean that he had no accomplices and that it was a lone wolf attack.
The police had reportedly arrested three people after raiding a small apartment at Rue Miollis but were clueless about whether the attacker was affiliated to ISIS.
The arrests concerned the attacker’s “close entourage”, sources said, and were made in two different areas of Nice.
The driver of the truck was earlier reported to be a 31-year-old Franco-Tunisian man.
Mauling by Vehicles is an Old ISIS Stratergy
Killing people by mauling them under vehicles is a decade-old ISIS strategy that was rejected by Osama Bin Laden, Rukmini Callimachi, The New York Times correspondent specialising in ISIS, has said.
In a series of tweets, she has explained that Laden had rejected this ‘strategy’ as it did not ensure the safety of the members of the Muslim community.
While the terror group wished to use Ford pick-up trucks as their vehicle of choice, according to Thomas Joscelyn, senior editor of the Long War Journal, the Nice attack was the first incident in which a vehicle was used for mass killing.
(With inputs from the New York Times, Reuters)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)