The Bastille Day terrorist
The death toll in yesterday’s horrific terrorist attack in Nice, France, has now reached 84, with many more injured, some of them very seriously and 25 on life support, so one can expect the death toll to rise. The perpetrator of this evil deed has now been identified as:
…Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a chauffeur and deliveryman who was born in Tunis but had lived in France for years. Three police officers exchanged fire with Lahouaiej-Bouhlel during his rampage, and found him dead in the passenger seat of the truck, Molins said.
There were many police on the scene, because it was a large crowd on Bastille Day, and France was already on alert. I am puzzled as to why it took so long for them to get him, but perhaps some facts will emerge about that, too (he was certainly a moving target, partially protected by the truck itself).
Police found two automatic weapons, ammunition, a mobile phone and documents in the truck, the prosecutor said. They also found fake weapons and more documents at Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s residence.
Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had a history of threats, violence and petty theft, Molins said, dating from 2010 to 2016, and had been sentenced this year to six-months in prison for a road rage incident.
But he was “totally unknown” to French anti-terror groups, Molins said, and so far authorities have not found links to terror groups or evidence of radicalization.
“No evidence of radicalization”? I submit that the act itself is evidence of radicalization. He followed the instructions of al Qaeda quite precisely and used a method rather popular with Muslim terrorists in Israel and elsewhere (the following is from an article dated November of 2014, so this is hardly news):
…[A] Palestinian man who Israeli police say had connections to Hamas drove a car into a crowd near a light rail station in Jerusalem, killing one person and injuring a dozen others. It followed a strikingly similar attack in the same area two weeks ago that killed a 3-month-old Israeli. In both cases, the driver was killed by police at the scene.
These attack…are…the latest examples of a terrorist tactic that gets less discussion than many others but seems increasingly common, particularly in Israel.
…While the tactic may be most common in Israel, it’s appeared elsewhere as well…[A] Canadian man believed to be an ISIS sympathizer drove his car into two soldiers in a parking lot in Quebec. In Beijing last year, three Uighurs drove a jeep into Beijing’s crowded Tiananmen Square, killing two and injuring about 40. In 2006, Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, a recent University of North Carolina graduate, drove an SUV into “The Pit,” a popular campus gathering spot, injuring nine people. He told police after his arrest that he had wanted to “avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world.”
A variation on ramming attacks is also recommended in the fall 2010 issue of Inspire, the English-language online magazine published by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The magazine…was read by the Tsarnaev brothers…The article recommends that practitioners take care to gather enough speed to “achieve maximum carnage” once crowds begin to scatter, and to choose their targets carefully. “If you can get through to ”˜pedestrian only’ locations that exist in some downtown (city center) areas, that would be fabulous,” the author, editor-in-chief Yahya Ibrahim, writes. He also suggests a number of countries where such an attack could take place, including the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, and Holland. So far, thankfully, no one seems to have attempted an attack along these lines.
As I said, that was written in November of 2014. That last sentence is no longer true, of course, and as you can see, the Bastille Day perpetrator followed the instructions and did those earlier attacks one better (“better” in terms of how terrorists rate these things, numbers of people killed and amount of fear and publicity sowed). This is the only vehicular terrorist attack that has killed so many people, in part because the perpetrator chose his venue very well (pedestrian area with no other cars and huge crowds), and used a much larger vehicle.
I have two questions at the moment. The first is why a non-citizen with a criminal history like that was allowed to stay in France. I know the answer, of course: it happens all the time, and it happens here, too. The second is how the truck managed to get onto the boulevard. Did it simply smash through the barriers? Were there no guards there, or did he kill them, too? I assume some more details on this will emerge.
As for the “why,” even if this guy had no obvious Islamist terrorist ties (and I’m not at all sure he didn’t), it’s not necessary to have any. ISIS, Al Qaeda, the internet, and the news take care of that, both for the inspiration and for instructions on the execution.
I have two questions at the moment. The first is why a non-citizen with a criminal history like thatwas allowed to stay in France.
because the left (in the west) thinks stupid things like equality, feminism, multiculturalism, and the idea that no one is bad, its the cirucmstances of their life, and so new environment you get a new person
they do not believe in human nature
if they did, they would not be what they are
they are the modern day vichy
The second is how the truck managed to get onto the boulevard. Did it simply smash through the barriers? Were there no guards there, or did he kill them, too? I assume some more details on this will emerge.
its a freaking TRUCK… you think the tiny gates they put up for new years would stop a car or truck? no way…
you think that times square pedestrian areas are safe?
you think the parking lot of citi field is safe from this?
its not the first or last time in nyc..
years ago, there was a man who drove up on the curb near penn station and drove down the street, up another street, etc…
there was also a sniper in the same area that killed a jewish student
but we forget what happens in our own world most of the time… its natural for normal brains to forget as a way of going through life… (abnormal is if you do remember)
A few days after he was tapped to lead a task force hunting a serial sniper near Penn Station in 1984, Inspector Joseph Maginnis had a frank talk with his boss. “If he stops shooting, we’ll never find him,” Maginnis told the chief.
the perp was dubbed the Yeshiva sniper..
there have also been a lot more attacks in the US than we realize given how the state post soviet collapse moved to put the public asleep rather than have the public awake and focused on anything but earning money and masturbatory entertainment.
this was why AQ signature was multiple attacks at the same time, because singluar attacks were buried as accidents or other things… gas truck explodes, its an accident… 3 of them at the same time in the same area with similar drivers, is very hard to hide (i even said so way back when discussiong of such were here on this blog)
right now, we are so idstracted we are missing the world war that russia and china are manipulating us and others into…
which is what i said would happen given that the election period is when the US is weakest and most distracted… and dysfunctional… post obama erasing the miltary, killing its morals, changing the standards, eradicating experience, and more…
we are going to lose…
the communists over the past 40 years with feminism, and these things, eradicated our competency, ability and productive capacity… (feminism destroyed the famil and men being men, so there are no protectors, the kids lost the knowlege passed down, and the abilities, and the left moves our manufacturing away, destroying the skill base that was here that allowed us to win WWII)
China warns Japan: Stop interfering in South Sea…
Touts plan to float nuclear reactors…
they have been slowly tightening up and moving things into position… satelite killer to destroy our gps, which woudl then negate most ofour system. emp tests on a cruise ship, new missiles, man made islands, an excuse for a conflict, and more..
but why pay attention to the war that will kill a billion this time?
Artfldgr:
My question was RHETORICAL.
I have answers.
I have noted the last few hours the rise of the “road rage” meme. Much like the self-hate meme that was pushed hard after Orlando.
According to an article by Spengler (h/t Insty), the guy was a police snitch. Terrorist tactics are to coopt snitches into becoming suicide attackers.
Maybe someone here can help out with my question.
DM reports that “The Nice terrorist parked on the promenade for nearly nine hours yesterday before launching his horrific attack, but was allowed to stay because he told police he was delivering ice cream.”
Does that look like a refrigerated truck to anyone? It doesn’t to me – where’s the refrigeration unit? The rear doors are not heavy duty. And what about the sound? The guy is parked there for NINE hours and nobody notices whether or not the truck’s refrigeration unit is cycling on and off? Refrigerated trucks make quite a bit of noise.
Thanks in advance.
Forgot to say that this wasn’t just a refrigerated truck but a freezer, which usually has even heavier doors and walls. Shouldn’t it also have been emitting some clouds of something or other from its refrigeration unit too?
It seems to me that this was an epic, epic fail on the part of the police. So many clues and he was there for 9 hours and nobody noticed anything that should’ve been obvious to a person with a functioning brain and some experience in the world.
(Once upon a time, kids used to play with little matchbox toys and were able to identify all the different kinds of vehicles in the world. Babysitting once, a little 3 or 4 year old charge of mine pulled out all his matchbox trucks and identified them one by one. I was truly amazed at the subtle differences between some of the vehicles!)
The suicide trucker was not a devout Muslim. He drank, he ate pork, he chased women, he was a low-level criminal. IMO, this type of Muslim man is fertile ground for recruiting to martyrdom operations. They are already violent and criminally inclined. They are probably harboring a lot of suppressed rage. When life has driven you into a corner, why not vent your rage and hope for salvation at the same time?
JJ,
“Life” did not drive him into a corner. Criminals invariably lack a work ethic and repeatedly make bad choices. They always blame others for their circumstances and by definition, subscribe to the notion that might makes right.
Interesting part about delivering ice cream. How long does it take? How long does an ice cream deliveryman sit idly in his truck?
This is so bizarre that maybe it’s wrong.
The extra weapons and grenades lead me to believe he was waiting for some of his homies. They didn’t show, things were over, crowds about to disperse, he couldn’t wait any longer.
Irene,
Your observation is interesting. I have been in France twice on Bastille Day, once in Paris and once in La Rochelle; and the police and military presence was much greater than anything I have witnessed here or anywhere in Europe. Someone took their eye off the ball if the ‘icecream’ truck was park on a major boulevard in a city the size of Nice.
@Richard A and @parker
It is beyond bizarre. Did no one think to ask, “Let me see your delivery papers?”
When I first visited France, “Papiers, svp” was standard op. Obviously, no more – even when the country is on high terrorist alert.
I could ask a million obvious questions, e.g., How many French truck drivers work on Bastille Day? Everybody knows getting anyone in France to work OT or on holidays is practically impossible. And yet nobody – especially the police – thought anything of this, even after nine hours?
If the guy was indeed a police informer, that could answer a lot of your questions, Irene. If he was known to the local cops, or could convincingly refer them to a higher-up who could vouch for him, it would allow them to wink at his ice cream delivery story. If there was an ice cream delivery story. I agree with you that we’re not getting all the facts of the situation.
@Brian Swisher
This police informer business sounds strange too, doesn’t it?
Did you see Hollande’s speech? He looked like a buffoon with his $10,000 coiffure who was totally out of his depth. Jihadis must have been laughing.
Regarding “not getting all the facts of the situation,” today’s reporting about the French government’s cover-up of Bataclan victims having been brutally and barbarically tortured just makes this all even worse.
Very depressing.
Irene: I was checking up on a couple of other things at Snopes today (my FiL is very fond of sending me the latest email rumors), and happened to see their account of the Bataclan claim, which they rate as FALSE.
* *
The portion in question originated via an inquiry published (not suppressed) by the French government, based on 21 March 2016 testimony in which investigators were asked about rumors of torture or propaganda creation at the Bataclan. A translated version of the inquiry’s minutes revealed that investigators soundly debunked the claims on record:
Mr President Fenech For the information of the inquiry, Mr. PT, can you tell us how you learned that there had been acts of barbarism within the Bataclan: beheadings, evisceration, enucleations?
MTP After the assault, we were with colleagues at the passage Saint-Pierre Amelot when I saw tears streaming out of the eyes of an investigator who went to vomit. He told us what he had seen. I did not know this colleague, but he was so shocked that it went to see it myself, naturally.
Alain Marsaud. Acts of torture happened on the second floor?
MTP I think, as I entered at the ground floor I saw there no such thing had occurred, only people hit by bullets.
Minutes from the inquiry session of 30 March 2016 again addressed what were clearly marked as rumors, and the government inquisition again heard no forensic evidence that supported such claims:
Mr. President. Following the November attacks, he was referred to the commission of barbaric acts.
Frané§ois Molins. It’s a rumor. Forensic doctors were categorical: there was no act of barbarism, no use, including knives. According to a witness, the testicles of a victim were cut off, but no findings have corroborated it.
Even if the French government hadn’t made public their findings about torture and evisceration at the Bataclan prior to the attacks in Nice, the post-Bastille Day attack rumor operated on the assumption such a coverup was even possible. By all accounts, 89 people died at the Bataclan on 13 November 2015, while another 200 were wounded but survived, and many more escaped unscathed. Contemporaneous reports estimated that 1,000 people were in attendance at the Bataclan on 13 November 2015 with 700 of them were physically unharmed. Had the French government opted to cover up acts of torture and emasculation at the venue, there was nothing stopping the vast majority of surviving witnesses from sharing their stories. None did.
@AesopFan
None of the major French newspapers mention this and I should have checked them beforehand.
That said, I could point to Chirac’s government denying radioactive fallout over France after Chernobyl and practically everyone in France believed it for quite some time. So, this did not strike me as implausible. 😉