IS claims Nice massacre

People gather at a makeshift memorial to honor the victims of an attack near the area where a truck mowed through revelers in Nice, southern France, Friday, July 15, 2016. A large truck mowed through revelers gathered for Bastille Day fireworks in Nice, killing more than 80 people and sending people fleeing into the sea as it bore down for more than a mile along the Riviera city’s famed waterfront promenade. AP PHOTO

BEIRUT, Lebanon—The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the truck attack that killed 84 people in Nice on France’s national holiday, the jihadist organization said Saturday in its official radio bulletin.

The statement from Al-Bayan said an IS “soldier” carried out a “new, special operation using a truck” to cause Thursday’s carnage.

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Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, rammed a 19-tonne truck into a large crowd as July 14 fireworks were ending in the French Riviera city.

At least 10 children were among the dead and 50 more were wounded, some of them critically, a hospital official said.

Al-Bayan warned that Western countries “will not be spared from the blows of the mujahideen” no matter how much they increase their security measures.

Earlier, the IS-affiliated Amaq news service quoted a security source as saying the attack was “in response to calls to target nations of coalition states that are fighting (IS)”.

IS has called on its supporters living in Europe to carry out lone-wolf attacks on Westerners, publishing a video early this year called “Kill wherever you find them.”

French President Francois Hollande said in the wake of the Nice attack that France would strengthen its role in Iraq and Syria, where it is part of a US-led coalition fighting the jihadists.

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Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the attacker probably had links to radical Islam, but Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve cautioned it was too early to make the connection.

IS also claimed responsibility for the November 13 attacks in Paris which killed 130 people.