On July 14th, Bastille Day, France saw yet another terrorist attack. Yesterday’s event was France’s third terrorist attack in 19 months.
The attacker was 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel born in Tunisia. At around 10:45 pm, Bouhlel drove a 19-ton truck into a crowd of people who were celebrating in the streets. Behind him, he left 84 dead and 202 injured including many children.
At first, bystanders thought that the truck was simply out of control and that the whole thing was a horrible accident. But they soon noticed that the truck’s headlights were off and the driver was not honking. Later on, when police got to the scene, the driver fired several shots at before the police finally killed him.
No organized terrorist groups have taken responsibility for the actions of Bouhlel and authorities don’t yet know if he acted alone. He was known by police for having committed smaller crimes like theft. He was not, however, on any national terrorist list, although online accounts show that he was engaged with terrorist websites.