Islamic State Claims Responsibility For Bastille Day Attack in Nice
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for Thursday’s truck attack in Nice, France, alleging that the assailant Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was a “soldier” of the group, the New York Times reports.
The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq said in a statement released through its Telegram account on Saturday, “The person who carried out the operation in Nice, France, to run down people was one of the soldiers of the Islamic State. He carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of states that are part of the coalition fighting the Islamic State.”
The New York Times reported 84 casualties from the attack so far, and 303 injured people, 26 of whom are in intensive care, as of Saturday morning.
French authorities told Reuters that they have yet to uncover evidence that Bouhlel had been radicalized and are investigating ISIS’ claim.
New York Times reporters Alissa J. Rubin an Aurelien Breeden cautioned against taking ISIS’ claims at face value without corroboration, saying in their report:
The claim must be greeted with caution. The Islamic State has in the past asserted responsibility for attacks carried out in its name, even when there was no sign of its direct involvement…. The group has intentionally blurred the line between operations that are planned and carried out by its core fighters and those carried out by sympathizers inspired to commit violence only from a distance.
New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi noted on Twitter that the amount of time ISIS took to claim responsibility for the attack is unusual (typically they do so within a day), but the group has occasionally taken longer, as in the case of the San Bernardino attack.
7. Most of the attacks they carried out in last year took less than 1 day, including Metrojet crash over Sinai on Oct 31 and Paris on Nov 13
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 16, 2016
12. So if we use time of claim as a metric for how clued in ISIS is to a given operation, Nice falls on the outer perimeter.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) July 16, 2016