A truck rammed into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the French Riviera city of Nice on Thursday night, killing at least 70 people in an apparent attack, French officials said.
The truck struck the crowd on the Promenade des Anglais, a seaside walk in center of the city in southern France, according to Nice Matin, a regional newspaper. About 100 people were reported injured.
Local authorities were treating the incident as an attack and urging people to stay home, the French television channel BFM TV reported. It occurred as a large crowd was watching a fireworks display celebrating the French national holiday.
Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, said the death toll has risen to 73. He said in one of a series of Twitter messages that the truck was carrying arms and explosives when it struck the crowd at about 10:30 p.m. local time.
CNN quoted an American witness as saying he saw one person in the large white truck and heard gunfire, although it was not clear whether it came from the driver or was being fired at the vehicle.
The witness said the driver accelerated as he was mowing people down.
The Associated Press quoted Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native, as saying that after slamming into the crowd, the truck driver emerged with a gun and started shooting.
“There was carnage on the road,” Bouhlel said. “Bodies everywhere.”
The Interior Ministry in Nice said about 100 people were injured and that the truck’s driver was shot by police.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bloodshed, although jihadist networks were celebrating it on social media.
France was rocked by a devastating terrorist attack in November, when heavily armed suicide bombers killed 130 people in several places around Paris. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack, the worst bloodshed on French soil since World War II.
In March, Islamic State attackers killed 32 people in suicide bombings at the Brussels airport and a metro station.
News footage from the scene of the Nice incident showed the truck’s windshield riddled with bullet holes.
Analysts noted that the Islamic State has called on its followers to kill civilians in Western countries by any means possible.
The Islamic State has previously called for attacks using vehicles, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist statements. It said supporters of the radical Islamist organization, also known as ISIS or ISIL, were sharing the news of the Nice attack and “celebrating the massacre.”
Police said people in the vicinity should stay home and follow instructions from authorities.
Witnesses said bodies of victims were strewn over the road for more than a mile. Police urged people not to spread rumors or broadcast shocking videos of the scene.
The Interior Ministry denied reports of a hostage-taking at a hotel and restaurant in Nice.
Despite the admonitions from French police, graphic video and photographs flooded social media. In some, bodies could be seen lying on the boulevard where the truck plowed into the crowd. Revelers ran away from the scene while sirens blared.
A reporter for Agence France-Presse called it “absolute chaos.”
“We saw people hit and bits of debris flying around,” he said.
In Washington, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said President Obama was informed about the situation in Nice and that his national security team would update him as appropriate.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump quickly took to Twitter, writing: “Another horrific attack, this time in Nice, France. Many dead and injured. When will we learn? It is only getting worse.”
In a subsequent tweet, Trump said he was postponing a news conference scheduled for Friday “concerning my Vice Presidential announcement.”
French President François Hollande returned to Paris to deal with the crisis after a private visit to Avignon, France.
Within half an hour of initial reports of the incident, Facebook had activated its “safety check” feature for people in Nice. On Twitter, others used the hashtag #PortesOuvertesNice (“OpenDoorsNice”) to find and offer refuge to those who needed a place to stay.
In a tweet, the city of Nice urged people to seek shelter that way, and the hashtag was soon trending globally.
Meanwhile, taxis in the city were providing free rides to people seeking to leave the scene.
Maryam Violet, an Iranian journalist visiting Nice on vacation, told theGuardian that she saw the truck running into people as they left the fireworks show.
“I saw that suddenly people were fleeing and shouting,” she said, speaking by phone from Nice. “People were shouting, ‘It’s a terrorist attack! It’s a terrorist attack!’ It was clear that the driver was doing it deliberately.”
“I was walking for nearly a mile, and there were dead bodies all over the place,” she continued. “I think over 30 dead bodies are on the ground and lots of people are injured.”
Violet said she saw bodies covered in blue sheets and families mourning loved ones — two sisters and a brother from Poland who had lost two siblings; a family whose mother had died. She guessed that the family was Muslim, because some members were wearing headscarves.
“In Arabic, they were saying she’s a martyr,” Violet said.
“People were celebrating” before the incident, she said. “And it was so peaceful. It was a festivity vibe. It was right after the fireworks that the truck came and ran over people.”
Zeynep Akar told CNN that the truck drove into crowds right outside her home.
“I suddenly heard the crash and people shouting,” she said. “When I went to the balcony, there were so many people on the ground.”
When she heard the crack of gunfire, she hurried back inside her house and turned off the lights. “I didn’t know what was going on,” she said.
As everyone who could sought shelter, only emergency responders and relatives of those killed remained at the scene.
Photos showed horror-struck mourners crouched over blanket-covered bodies. A Reuters photographer captured a small figure covered in a foil sheet; a child’s doll lay next to the body.
It’s nice to see that the “War on Terror” has been so successful. It’s all about “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here,” right?
Yeah, let’s keep fighting a war on a tactic. Because it’s not like constantly bombing and invading foreign lands is provoking retaliatory attacks or anything like that…
Seems the more there’s a war on something the worse it gets
Exactly!
Oh, look. It’s another terrorist attack. *YAWN*
Gee, I wonder why the truck full of explosives didn’t go BOOM! That’s if there were any.
Did the driver yell Alluah Ackbar!! while he was running people over? I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to yell that.
It was kinda nice of ISIS not to run people over until after the fireworks were over. Nothing spoils good fireworks like a bunch of dead people layin around.
I watched the video and I didn’t see any dead people in the road. Or a truck. Just a bunch of people running.
“Witnesses said bodies of victims were strewn over the road for more than a mile. Police urged people not to spread rumors or broadcast shocking videos of the scene.”
Oh, ok. Well that explains the lack of dead bodies or a truck in the video….the police told everyone not to film it.
Guess I’ll go see what kinda video I can find.
So…………
ALLLllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll of this ‘surveillance’……
But another “surprise”.
Got it.
.
.
Isis has previously called for attacks using vehicles, according to SITE Intelligence Group. The same group that admitted, oops, I mean claimed they get terrorists videos and info out even before the terrorists can (how’s that possible?). Wanna know what this is, Operation Gladio being revisited, plain and simple.
Here in the US the methods are more sophisticated, we use media to advertise ways to kill people by the tens of thousands, on the low end, with ads for grand ideas such as power structure attacks.
Not sure how, simple read more ads that go into detail how ez it is to get info on basic points to take out regional substations (what ever the heck they are called) to cripple large areas for tremendously long periods of time. Not enough, simply read / listen to more of the common ads about how “what would happen” if they targeted multiple stations! – the carnage! Ads also include option such as infiltration and EMP attacks etc.
yet so few ask themselves why these virtual direction how to cripple the US are promoted regularly
Gonna have to put a ban on all those “Assault Trucks”.
The guy had a gun. Obviously we need need more gun control in the US…
https://www.facebook.com/bikers4america/videos/1251727161505663/ Very Gruesome vid, watch it and get mad…
Sorry Norm, I haven’t belonged to the Jewish Farce Book in five years.
You really shouldn’t either if you value your privacy. The NSA, FBI, DHS and CIA like it though.
Fox news is saying the explosives in the truck were grenades.
Gee, I hope all that dieversity was worth it.
And yes, I misspelled that on purpose.
Filled with grenades AND weapons!? Guess blowing up AK’s is another way of using them to maximum capabilities.
This is what I found for video so far:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PmT8G2KRyM
Although it looks like the news agency deliberately blurred the video of folks lying in the road. Don’t want to upset those with fragile stomachs, I suppose.
The truck speeds up and allegedly starts running over people after it is out of view behind trees. One guy leans over in front of the cameras with a look on his face that asks, why is every one running? Clean sheets over bodies, No trails of blood from the tires. Why was it daylight when the pictures of the shot up truck were taken? it should still be dark there. Why do all those people run in the same direction the truck was allegedly going? Even stupid people would be running perpendicular to the threat and getting behind barriers. The more false flag and fake terror events shown to the public, the better we are at learning to pick them apart.
JUST MORE BULLSHIT. THEY SHOULD KNOW THAT CRISIS ACTORS CANT WIRE GRENADES WORTH A DAMN.
If people were really killed, what if the truck was remotely controlled like Michael Hasting’s car and the driver was just the patsy?
Remember how the neocons and Obama were trying their level best to con the American public into going along with their pathologically dangerous lust to invade Syria a few years ago? To launch yet ANOTHER war against ANOTHER Arab nation that the bloodthirsty Israelis hates and wants to con the US into attacking and destroying for their benefit?
Remember how Putin stepped up and put a stop to that by exposing their lies about Assad using chemical weapons against his own people? And, remember how the American people – in every major poll that was taken – vehemently opposed ANY MORE of these neocon invasions and wars against any nation that Israel happened to hate?
Well, these blood thirsty Israelis and their 5th column of treasonous neocons here in the USA haven’t given up on their lust to maneuver the USA and probably the UK (again) into attacking Syria. They created ISIS, are arming them and Israel is providing medical treatment for any injured ISIS terrorists.
Hence, I smell neocon false flag stench wafting off of this latest terrorist event. No matter who wins in November, we’re going to see another push by the next White House administration to con the American people into supporting a US military invasion and occupation of Syria – which is going to be a complete disaster, both financially for the US, and for what little is left of the stability of the Middle East. Plus, it will cause an even bigger stampede of ‘refugees’ into Europe and that spells the death of White European nations.
The excuse they’ll use is ‘We have to get tough with ISIS, and to do that, we have to invade Syria’.
Sounds like they need to pass some gun laws
(Sarc)
“Local authorities were treating the incident as an attack and urging people to stay home, the French television channel BFM TV reported.”
Urging people to stay at home because of a truck going fast?
What’s next? Urging people to stay at home because some child supposedly rode over another kid with his bicycle?
I mean seriously. WTF? Are people really that pathetic or is the MSM just brainwashing them into believing they are that pathetic?