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Nice attack: Who was the man who drove the lorry? Nice attack: Who was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel?
(about 4 hours later)
Police are yet to confirm the identity of the man behind the wheel of the white lorry that ploughed into hundreds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the seafront in Nice. French prosecutors have confirmed that Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was behind the wheel of the lorry that ploughed into people celebrating Bastille Day on the seafront in Nice on Thursday, killing scores of people.
However, he was named locally as Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old man living in Nice, known to police but not previously linked to jihadist groups. The 31-year-old Tunisian delivery man was known to police but not previously linked to jihadist groups.
He was married with three children and worked as a delivery driver, although he no longer lived with his partner, reports say. A driver's licence and bank card bearing his name were found inside the lorry by officers soon after they shot dead the attacker.
Police raided his home on Friday morning, in the Abattoirs area not far from Nice railway station. On Friday, investigators and forensic experts raided his flat in the working-class Abattoirs area, not far from Nice's main railway station.
As emergency services tended to the men, women and children left dying and wounded on the Promenade des Anglais, police scoured the lorry for evidence and found papers that identified him as a Franco-Tunisian or of Tunisian origin. Tunisian security sources told BBC Arabic that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was from the northern town of Msaken, about 10km (6 miles) outside the coastal city of Sousse.
One report said his driver's licence, credit card and mobile phone were found inside the lorry. His divorced parents lived in France, but he had relatives living in Msaken and visited Tunisia frequently, the last time eight months ago, the sources added.
He had been in trouble with the police in the past for petty crime and violence, but he was not on the watch list of radicalised young men. Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was married with three children, although he no longer lived with his wife, who was detained by police on Friday.
Anyone seen as a threat to state security has what the government refers to as a "fiche S". The majority of attacks carried out in France since January 2015 have been staged by men designated with a "fiche S", and also linked to so-called Islamic State (IS). A woman who knows the family told the BBC that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was thrown out of their home in the Le Ray area of Nice more than a year ago after allegedly beating his wife.
Although witnesses initially thought the killer had lost control of the lorry, it soon became clear he was acting deliberately. 'Quiet loner'
"I even had time to see the driver's face. He had a beard and appeared to be having fun," one man said. Several neighbours in the four-storey block of flats where he subsequently moved described him as "quiet" and a "loner" who did not even respond to their greetings.
There were suggestions that among the papers found in the vehicle were rental documents. According to one report, the killer hired the lorry from a rental firm in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, a town to the west of Nice, two days beforehand. He had a van parked nearby and would often be seen climbing the stairs to his first-floor flat, carrying his bike.
In 2012, he was barred from entering the home he shared with his partner in the north of the city because of allegations of domestic violence, Nice-Matin reports (in French). One of the neighbours, who gave his first name as Sebastien, told the AFP news agency that he did not seem overtly religious.
Outside the flat in the Route de Turin where he had been living, residents of the four-storey building described the man as a loner who never responded when they said hello. He would often be seen climbing the stairs to his first-floor flat, carrying his bike, they said. Anan, who lived on the ground floor, said she was suspicious of him because he was "a good-looking man who kept giving my two daughters the eye".
Although the attacker had a pistol, all the other weapons found in the lorry turned out to be fake, which raises questions about the extent of support he had from jihadist groups. One woman recalled that he was nice to her and helped her all the time. But, she said, his behaviour was sometimes "strange".
Who was police attacker Larossi Aballa? He once asked to rent her mailbox and that when she refused he had called her "nasty", she added. When she learnt of the attack, she immediately wondered if he might have been involved.
Many are linking the attack to a 2014 audio message from an IS spokesman, Mohammed al-Adnani, who urged followers to stage all manner of attacks. "If you can't detonate a bomb or fire a shot, manage by yourself... run them over with your car," he said. Assault
Many of France's jihadist killers, starting with Mohammed Merah in Toulouse in 2012, began their journey towards militant Islam as petty criminals. Prosecutor Francois Molins told a news conference on Friday that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had been in trouble with police between 2010 and 2016 for threatening behaviour, violence and petty theft.
The Nice attacker appears to have followed the same path. In March, a court in Nice convicted him of assaulting a motorist with an improvised weapon during an altercation and handed him a six-month suspended prison sentence.
The 19-tonne white lorry used in the attack was rented on 11 July in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, just to the east of Nice.
The attack began at about 22:30 on Thursday, when the lorry turned onto the Promenade des Anglais, where a huge crowd was gathered for a Bastille Day fireworks display.
The lorry drove for 2km (1.2 miles) along the seafront boulevard, swerving from side to side in an apparent effort to kill as many people as possible.
Mr Molins said that when he reached the famous Negresco Hotel, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel fired repeatedly at three policemen.
They returned fire and pursued the lorry for another 300m (985ft), before shooting him dead inside the cabin near the Palais de la Mediterranee hotel.
Nader El Shafei, an Egyptian who was on holiday in Nice, told the BBC that the driver looked "very nervous" during the attack.
"I kept yelling at him, waving with my hands to stop and trying to tell him that there is a lot people under his truck - dead already. But he did not give any attention to anyone outside the truck."
"And suddenly I saw him picking up something like a cellphone. I thought he would call the ambulance for the accident but it seemed that I was wrong, because he just picked up his gun and he started to shoot the police."
'Never flagged'
Inside the lorry, police found one automatic pistol, bullets and two replica assault rifles, as well as another fake pistol.
Mr Molins said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was "totally unknown" to French intelligence services, and was "never flagged for signs of radicalisation".
"Although yesterday's attack has not been claimed, this sort of thing fits in perfectly with calls for murder from such terrorist organisations," he added.
Anyone seen as a threat to state security in France has what the government refers to as a "fiche S".
The majority of attacks carried out in France since January 2015 have been staged by men designated with a "fiche S", and also linked to so-called Islamic State (IS).
Some are linking the attack to a 2014 audio message from IS spokesman Mohammed al-Adnani who told supporters: "If you can't detonate a bomb or fire a shot, manage by yourself... run them over with your car," he said.
Many of France's jihadist killers, starting with Mohammed Merah in Toulouse in 2012, began their journey towards militant Islam as petty criminals. The Nice attacker may have followed the same path.