Islamic State claims Nice attacker

UPDATE (7/18, 11:26 a.m.): Paris prosecutor François Molins, who oversees terrorism investigations, said Monday that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s deadly attack using a truck Thursday night in Nice, France, was premeditated and that the attacker had expressed support for Islamic State.

Molins said a review of Bouhlel’s computer and phone showed online searches relating to ISIS and other terrorist groups. Evidence also showed that Bouhlel had made reconnaissance visits to the site of the attack, indicating he had planned the attack.

The prosecutor also said that 13 bodies of those killed still remain unidentified.

UPDATE (7/18, 10:13 a.m.): The uncle of the man who killed 84 people when he plowed through a crowd in Nice, France, Thursday night, said his nephew was recruited by an Algerian member of Islamic State two weeks before the attack.

Sadok Bouhlel told The Associated Press that his nephew Mohamed Lahouaiyej was “an easy prey for recruitment” because of his estrangement from his wife and children.

French officials have yet to confirm that the attacker was recruited, saying the investigation was ongoing.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday, but the attacker’s uncle said his nephew was not a devout Muslim.

“Mohamed didn’t pray, didn’t go to the mosque and ate pork,” said Sadok Bouhlel, a 69-year-old retired teacher who lives in the attacker’s hometown of Msaken, Tunisia. The uncle said he learned about the Algerian recruiter from extended family members who live in Nice.

French authorities have seven people in custody related to the attack investigation, with three possibly facing terrorism charges, according to a security official.

France held a moment of silence for the victims on Monday at the site of Thursday’s attack. Prime Minister Manuel Valls attended the ceremony and was loudly booed when he arrived and departed. French President François Hollande’s Socialist administration has come under criticism since the attack from its conservative opposition, including former President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“I know that we shouldn’t fight or tear each other up while the victims haven’t been buried yet,” he said in an interview on French TV. “But I want to say that everything that should have been done over the past 18 months was not done.”

OUR EARLIER REPORT: A message Islamic State released Saturday says that the Tunisian man who used a truck to plow through a crowd of people in Nice, France, Thursday was a “soldier” in its terrorism cause. The attack killed 84 and injured 202 more during a Bastille Day celebration. Twenty-five victims are on life support, according to authorities.

The message, which was circulated on social media by a news outlet affiliated with Islamic State, did not mention 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel by name but it quoted an ISIS security member saying the attacker was following calls from ISIS to target citizens of countries fighting it.

After initial reports indicated that Bouhlel was merely a troubled and angry man with little interest in radical Islam, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Saturday the attacker may have had a last-minute conversion to an extremist worldview.

“It seems he was radicalized very quickly,” Cazeneuve said following a ministerial meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

The Paris prosecutor’s office is also looking into whether Bouhlel had any accomplices. Five people are currently in custody, and several of Bouhlel’s former neighbors in Nice said police took away his estranged wife Friday night.

The suffering is a far from over in the seaside resort city. Two days after the attack, families continue to hunt for missing love ones, going hospital to hospital.