Mediterranean bloodshed

Thursday night, on Bastille day, July the 14th of 2016, a city known for her wide Muslim community, providing lots of Jihad fighters, was shaken and had to see many Muslims, Arabs, Tunisians killed among the many French, Americans and many other tourists from all over the world.

Several children who were brought up by God loving parents, who praise Allah and keep to His ordinances found death on the day they wanted to celebrate the work what was done by the French compatriots to get freedom of thought, freedom of movement and also freedom of religion.

Now they were killed by someone who said he was doing this act of martyrdom in the Name of that same Allah.

In a truck were the windshield was replaced with bulletproof glass or coated with bullet-resistant material, according to experts, he started a race of death going from one site to the other on a lovely promenade where every day and night lots of tourists enjoy the Mediterranean Sea.

Now after the facts it might be easy for us to complain and wonder why given that France has been on high alert since the November 2015 coordinated terror attacks that struck Paris, killing 130 people, the government was not more prepared for potential violence on a major French holiday. How was it possible that the truck could enter that zone the day before and left unattended. In it could have been hidden enough explosives to kill many more people. Why did the police did not remove that vehicle before the celebrations started?

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel Credit: matrixpictures.co.uk

On Tuesday and Wednesday the 31-year-old Tunisian immigrant Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove through the Nice seafront promenade area in preparation of what would become a nightmare for many. 84 people died when he ploughed his vehicle into people celebrating Bastille Day on Thursday.  After Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was shot dead by police when his vehicle’s path along the Promenade des Anglais was eventually halted, they found his mobile phone with records suggesting he used dating websites and dabbled with drugs and drink.

The killer is said to have sent a chilling text message demanding weapons minutes before the seafront massacre, which would mean others were involved in it are connected with it as well.

The Telegraph reports

Suspects range from two Albanians suspected of supplying a pistol to Bouhlel, and others whose phone numbers appeared on the phone.

Another man, 37, arrested in Nice on Sunday is suspected of supplying arms to the killer after reportedly receiving messages saying: “Bring more weapons, bring five of them to C.”

The message is said to have been sent 18 minutes before he ploughed a 19-tonne lorry into holiday crowds, killing 84 people.

More than 200 investigators were urgently working to determine the significance of ‘C’ and whether the killer had accomplices or links with a terrorist network. {Nice terror attack: ‘soldier of Islam’ Bouhlel ‘took drugs and used dating sites to pick up men and women’}

‘Loner’ Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was killed by police after unleashing carnage on the 30,000-strong crowd in Nice Credit: Matrix

On Sunday night after the arrests earlier in the day of an Albanian couple suspected of aiding Bouhlel, described by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) as one its “soldiers” already seven people including his ex-wife were in custody.

This attacker for sure can not be described as a faithful to Allah, when we know he enjoyed sex with more than one person, got divorced abandoning three children, and did enjoy an exuberant live in gyms and salsa bars.

Already in 2004 his father became concerned about his behaviour and let him being assessed by a psychiatrist in Tunisia.

When we do know that Nice with Marseille is a centre of Muslim fundamentalism and has lots of Jihadists in its midst it is very strange ISIS would ask to have an attack over there, because for sure many of their own brethren would be killed. Indeed lots of Muselman found the end of their life.

Alongside non-Muslim French a secular middle-class from North Africa has lived in peace at the French Riviera. It has one of France’s largest populations of Tunisian origin. Several groups of Muslims also found a nice way to live in the known port. But there are also several no-go zones where even the police does not dare to be on its own. You might find a French Molenbeek over there in the sunny region, darkening one of France’s most popular tourist destinations. In certain areas a population can be found that lives in bleak housing blocks in the city’s outlying districts, where in 2013 close to 40 percent of young people were unemployed, according to the French statistics office Insee. Such places, like we can find also around Paris and Brussels, are ideal to recruit people who want to find a way to work out their grudge against society. Omar Diaby (linked with the Al Nusra group close to Al Qaeda), a resident of Senegalese origin  now believed to be living in Syria, has been linked through an associate or associates to Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the man who carried out the Bastille Day massacre, according to French news reports. He is one of the recruiters who managed to get 100 young people from that city to fight in Syria with extremists.

Mr. Diaby, several Muslims with knowledge of radical circles said, targeted 13- to 15-year-olds as recruits to join the fight in Syria and was notorious for using violent radicalization videos that made killing seem like a game. The French newspaper Le Monde and other French news outlets said the authorities had found cellphone records indicating that Mr. Diaby and Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel knew, or at least called, some of the same people.

Once more we can see that poverty, no job, no prospect for a better future is a good soil to create attackers of our society.

A problem in the city may also be that several Muslims are not registered in the town. Those Muslims not living in good conditions are also not able to vote because they have not become citizens or because they are not well organized politically, making it easier for the government to ignore their concerns. Several Muslim residents said the most worrisome trend was how immigrants were being pushed to the city’s outskirts by gentrification.

When you visit Nice you may find behind the cathedral in old Nice, a working-class neighbourhood where the local government has been buying up buildings. Already four (or five) years ago we found many derelict houses there. Several residents said the city either kept the buildings empty or turned them into cybercafes or day care centres, rather that rent them out to Muslim shopkeepers. The city has said it wants to renew the area and increase the number of pedestrian streets.

However, on Rue Italie, the once-fierce competition among numerous halal butchers has dwindled to two.

Lotfi Brick, a halal butcher from Tunisia, said the city government was

“trying to clear the Muslims from the neighborhood.”

Mr. Brick is proud that his clientele has remained diverse and loyal over the years, but he worries that could change because of gentrification — and politics.

“I have Charolais beef, the best meat in France, and reasonable prices,”

he said to Lilia Blaise and Alissa J. Rubin, referring to one of France’s most celebrated breeds of cattle. {Attack in Nice Turns Spotlight on City’s Religious Divisions}

“That’s why everyone shops here: Christians, Jews, Muslims,” he said. {Attack in Nice Turns Spotlight on City’s Religious Divisions}

And normally that should not be a problem. But today we do find a group which finds it easy to claim attacks, even those done by lunatics are people who have nothing to do with them, but use the name “Allah” for bringing fear and pain.

When in December 2014, a middle-aged man driving a car in Dijon, mowed down more than a dozen pedestrians within 30 minutes, occasionally shouting Islamic slogans from his window, the chief prosecutor in Dijon described the attacks as the work of a mentally unbalanced man whose motivations were vague and “hardly coherent.”

Having again a strange man zig zagging on the Promenade d’Anglais slaughtering dozens of people, we should be careful to distinguish the work of mentally ill people and those who are good by their senses wanting to have more power and willing to bring fear over many people.

Having entered an age of terrorism it can well be that too quickly people come to the conclusion that it is the “Islam world” of Daesh that attacks their free world trying to limit it and chain it to the Islamic faith.

Daniel Benjamin, a former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism and a professor at Dartmouth College said,

“the Islamic State and jihadism has become a kind of refuge for some unstable people who are at the end of their rope and decide they can redeem their screwed-up lives” by dying in the name of a cause.

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Please find to read:

• Nice attack, terror everywhere and coup attempt in Turkey
• When will it stop
• In the Age of ISIS, Who’s a Terrorist, and Who’s Simply Deranged?
• Attack in Nice Turns Spotlight on City’s Religious Divisions
• Nice attack: Killer sent photo of himself laughing as he walked through crowd before massacre, says brother
• Nice attack bewilders Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s relatives

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 Further reading

1. Bastille day
2. Horrifying moment when #France #Nice killer truck hits unsuspecting people filmed from front (Graphic) — #RT-#News #USA #UK
3. Shock and mourning after Nice attack: ‘If he’s a nobody, who do we blame?’ – Ed Vulliamy Sunday 17 July 2016 15.30 EDT
4. ISIS said they’re responsible for truck attack in Nice, France’, Terrorist group claims
5. UC Berkeley student confirmed dead during terror attack on France
6. What do you know? Languages help you understand terrorism
7. Le 14 juillet: « Liberté, égalité, fraternité » et les valeurs voltairiennes
8. Was the Nice Attacker Really a Jihadist? — Time
9. The Nice Terrorist Attack, What Do We Do Now? (Graphic Image)
10. France PM: “We should learn to live with terrorism”
11. what the world needs now… is the Jesus kind of peace #Nice
12. ISIS ‘soldier’ Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel smuggled £84,000 to his family in Tunisia days before murdering 84 in Nice
13. Little Children : the Victims of Political Correctness
14. Dear France, We feel your pain
15. Nice Mon Amour
16. Nice Attack and things that come to mind.
17. Denying the Obvious
18. Humanity Quote for Pax Populi
19. Ban Assault Vehicles or Ask Tough Questions
20. A week in July
21. Nice attack: Lorry driver confirmed as Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel
22. Nice attack: Survivor loses six family members as France mourns for victims — Metro
23. Another Mad Mohammed
24. How’s My Driving?
25. Man and woman arrested over Nice terror attack — Metro
26. Child among 18 people still in life-threatening condition following Nice terror attack — Metro
27. French Attack: Media Focuses on Aftermath Instead of Asking Relevant Questions
28. Idris Elba’s new film Bastille Day pulled from French cinemas after Nice attack
29. Lone wolf terrorist: hatred and solitude against society
30. Nice attack: What we know so far
31. Bono hid in restaurant during Bastille Day attack
32. California Student Among the Dead in Nice Attack — Time
33. Fitting tribute for terrorist who killed 84 people on Nice promenade — Metro
34. Nice attack was due to “decades of multiculturalism”…
35. Gates of the asylum
36. Nice, Turkey, and Baton Rouge