France Attacker Took Selfies in Killer Truck

Possible accomplices seen in photos arrested
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 20, 2016 5:28 AM CDT
France Attacker Took Selfies in Killer Truck
This photo shows Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel.   (Kapitalis via AP)

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel apparently spent days in a state of gleeful anticipation before he used a truck to kill at least 84 people in Nice, France. The Guardian reports that photos have emerged of the 31-year-old Tunisian posing for selfies in and next to the rented truck used in the horrific attack. In one, Bouhlel and a passenger can be seen giving the camera the finger while sitting in the cab of the truck. The passenger and another man who appears in Bouhlel's photos are among those who were taken in for questioning after the attack last Thursday, the Telegraph reports. Bouhlel's brother Jabeur tells Reuters that Bouhlel "seemed very happy and pleased, he was laughing a lot" in a photo he sent of himself amid a crowd in Nice just hours before the attack.

ISIS has called Bouhlel a "soldier," though relatives say he ate pork, drank alcohol, and didn't go to the mosque, the Independent reports. According to reports in French media, phone records have revealed that Bouhlel met both men and women, including a 73-year-old man, through dating sites. Relatives say Bouhlel suffered from mental illness and was radicalized in just two weeks by an ISIS recruiter. David Canter, director of Britain's International Research Center for Investigative Psychology tells the AP that Bouhlel appears to be more of a "spree killer," like the Columbine shooters, than a terrorist. Such killers sometimes align with extremists because they "will hook onto whatever is in the wind at the time they want to express their anger and frustration," he says. (Seven people have been arrested over possible links to the Nice attack.)

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