Terror Overshadows Bastille Day Celebrations in Nice

This year’s Bastille day was marred by a terror attack in Nice, France, when an attacker used a truck to plow through two kilometers of street celebrations. 84 people, were killed by the attack. French authorities and president Francoise Holland have called for a five-month extension of the ongoing  national state of emergency enacted after attacks at the Bataclan night club in Paris earlier this year..

According to reports, the man who appeared to commit the attacks was Tunisian national, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhel. He was known to have moved to France in 2005, taking up an occupation as a delivery truck driver.

Following the attack and identification, authorities raided Bouhel’s home. No statements have been released regarding their findings; however, Bouhel was known in the community as a petty criminal, taking part  in burglary and thefts, but was not a suspect in any terror plots nor is believed to have links to terror networks.

Reports outlined that Bouhel got behind the wheel of a large truck at around 10:30 p.m. Nice time, before turning onto the seaside boulevard of Promenade des Anglais, a street packed with an enormous crowd of spectators for the national holiday.

Police officials indicated that the driver opened fire with a gun from the front seat of the truck. While shooting, Bouhel made his way through the crowd, zig-zagging to overrun as many people as possible. The attacker was stopped 1.1 miles after his initial rampage when police shot and killed him outside of a hotel and casino. Upon entering the stalled vehicle, security officials uncovered an array of explosives and firearms, which later were revealed to be out to be fake.

No group or organization has claimed responsibility for the attack; however, this kind of method of killing is not new to individuals who conduct attacks for  jihadist networks. Additionally, this kind of attack has been previously called for by groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

In 2010, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula sought to inspire lone terror attacks using trucks and other large vehicles. Similarly, in 2014 Islamic State spokesperson Abu Mohammed al-Adnani released a statement outlining manners in which to take up arms against supposed infidels. Among these ways, Abu listed running over enemies with one’s car.

Prior to both of these calls to action from jihadist networks, terror attacks using vehicles to plow over pedestrians had been witnessed in the United States. In March of 2006, students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were congregating in a popular area around central campus when a graduate student attempted to injure the crowd using a car. The student, named Mohammed Taheri-azar, outlined his desire to maim students due to what he viewed as the U.S. government’s treatment of Muslims aboard.

Similar efforts to injure civilians using vehicles was also reported in France in late 2014. There, a driver screaming “Allahu Akbar,” a phrase in Arabic meaning “god is greater,” before intentionally running over pedestrians in Dijon before being arrested by French authorities. The assailant who committed the crime was known to French security officials and cited the treatment of Palestinians as a reason for his actions.

Palestinian groups are also, and have been for quite some time, known to the be largest terror actors that have used cars and trucks to kill. The Times of Israel outlined this typical manner of attack from terror groups, by stating that “car-ramming attacks have featured heavily in a wave of terrorism and violence that has killed at least 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean, and a Sudanese since October of 2015.”

Though many are quick to blame Islamic State for the attack, historically, many terror acts have been conducted using similar killing methods. The use of vehicles to mow down the innocent has been a popular theme across the world for the past ten years, so to some degree, Bouhel’s actions in Nice represent the traditional efforts of jihadist networks.

France’s relation with Islamic terrorism has been, complicated factors, by growing lawlessness in urban areas featuring high concentrations of Muslim residents.  From November of 2015 to July 2016, the European state has suffered three major attacks and well over two hundred deaths, ultimately confirming the fears of French security forces one year ago regarding the possibility of mass terror attacks across the country.

Despite the popularity of the jihadist group Islamic State, the attack’s modus operandi is shared by numerous jihadist organizations from Hamas to al-Qaeda. Ultimately though, it is not Bouhel’s influence, if any, that is the source of concern for France. Any method of terror attack, cannot be thwarted unless the state deals with the underlying security situation, which, according to a French intelligence agent, is increasingly “hopeless”.