Islamic State claims responsibility for France attack in Nice

NICE, France — The Islamic State on Saturday claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 84 in this coastal French city, the organization’s news agency said Saturday, as French prosecutors took four more people into custody in connection with the attack.

It remained unclear whether the Islamic State had directed the attack or whether they were simply taking responsibility for an attack that they may have inspired. The Islamic-State-connected Amaq news agency cited an “insider source” saying that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, “was a soldier of the Islamic State.”

“He executed the operation in response to calls to target citizens of coalition nations that fight the Islamic State,” the news agency wrote.

But the oblique claim of responsibility left open the question of whether Bouhlel had acted alone or had any prior communication with the group, which has also claimed ties to the attacks that struck Paris twice last year and Brussels in March. French authorities have been scrambling to determine whether Bouhlel acted alone or had a support network in Nice, where he appears to have been living for at least six years.

Investigators on Saturday detained four additional people in connection with the attack, including one person who is believed to have spoken to Bouhlel by phone minutes before he started his deadly journey down Nice’s Promenade des Anglais, local media reported. A day earlier, Paris Prosecutor François Molins said that police had detained Bouhlel’s ex-wife and were questioning her.

The scale of the carnage wrought by a Bouhlel came into grim focus Friday, with 10 children among the dead and 202 people injured. Among the wounded, 50 were “between life and death,” according to French President François Hollande.

The attack with a 19-ton rented Renault truck — the third mass- casualty assault to hit to France in 18 months — shocked the nation and sparked questions about whether authorities had done enough to safeguard a country that is an obvious target of terrorist groups. Many witnesses said Friday that the packed corniche had been only lightly guarded by police during fireworks on the gently warm night. Bouhlel, a truck driver, was easily able to drive around police fences blocking Nice’s famous Promenade des Anglais before jamming on the accelerator and zigzagging his way through the crowds in a method that seemed calculated to generate maximum bloodshed.

The identities of the victims testified to France’s diverse society and to the international appeal of the tony French Riviera. A vacationing father and his 11-year-old son from Lakeway, Tex. A headscarf-wearing Muslim woman who came to celebrate Bastille Day with her nieces and nephews. A French high school teacher, his wife, daughter and grandson. Others from Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Australia.

There were so many victims early Friday that survivors grabbed tablecloths from seaside cafes to cover the bodies strewn across the asphalt. The dead were marked by rectangular orange and white traffic-control barriers that stood like rows of tombstones.