French Police Launch Massive Manhunt in Search for Clues in Nice Terror Attack

French authorities launched a massive manhunt Friday for suspects in the latest deadly terror strike against the country, a truck rampage on a crowded seaside promenade that left a trail of crumpled bodies, bloodstained shoes and the detritus of what had been a joyous holiday celebration.

At least 84 people were killed and dozens more injured, French officials said, with many children among the victims. The U.S. State Department said two Americans had been killed, and relatives in Texas identified them as 51-year-old Sean Copeland and his son Brodie, 11.

With condolences pouring in from around the world and France set to observe three days of official mourning, President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls flew to Nice in a show of determined solidarity in the face of the brutal assault, which came eight months after devastating strikes in Paris. It was the third major attack on French soil in the past 18 months.

“We are facing a long battle,” a haggard-looking Hollande said in a televised statement from the stricken city at mid-afternoon, in which he hailed security forces who, in a now-familiar pattern, rushed to respond to the attack.

French police said identification found with the body of the driver-assailant, who was killed in an exchange of gunfire, belonged to Mohammed Lahouaiej Boulel, a French citizen of Tunisian descent described by authorities as a 31-year-old petty criminal from the Nice area. But DNA tests had not yet positively identified him, and authorities said they were searching for evidence that additional plotters could have played a part.

Authorities were also poring over CCTV footage, and French media reports cited police as saying the large commercial-sized white truck used in the attack had apparently begun its journey in the hills outside of Nice, where rosemary-scented slopes spill down to meet the sea.

Rejoicing erupted on online networks associated with Islamic jihadists, but authorities said no link had yet been established between the attacker and any known group. Weapons including grenades were found in the truck, signaling that the attacker had hoped to inflict even greater carnage.   

The Islamic State jihadist group for months has issued propaganda videos urging lone-wolf attackers to use any weapons at hand, however low-tech, to stage attacks against a variety of Western targets. One such video disseminated online in mid-April included the chilling exhortation: “Fill your car with gas. My brother, hurry up! Your neighbor is a kafir (unbeliever.)”

There was no mistaking the heavy-handed symbolism of the attack, staged on Bastille Day, the French national holiday commemorating liberation from tyranny, and targeting late-night, midsummer revelers watching the spectacular offshore fireworks display from Nice’s palm-fringed, sea-hugging Promenade des Anglais.

World leaders swiftly expressed sympathy -- and renewed determination to confront terrorist threats wherever they originated. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, in Moscow for meetings with Russian officials in an attempt to reach a ceasefire in Syria, said: “Nowhere is there a greater hotbed or incubator for those terrorists than in Syria.”

"I think people all over the world are looking to us and waiting for us to find a faster and more tangible way [to show] that everything possible is being done to end this terrorist scourge and to unite the world in the most comprehensive efforts possible to fight back against their nihilistic and depraved approach to life and death," he said.

On the morning after in Nice, as sunshine sparkled off the blue Mediterranean, uneasy, grief-stricken crowds gathered at the scene, milling close to police cordons sealing off the mile-and-a-quarter-long path of the truck’s rampage hours earlier. Some people wept and laid flowers. Though largely screened off from view by white sheeting, the upper outlines of the truck could still be seen.

Incongruously, some of the rhythms of tourist-city life went on, with waiters setting up tables at the city’s outdoor cafes. In a token of the jittery atmosphere, an unattended-bag scare briefly emptied the terminal at Nice’s airport, but it reopened soon after.

Still dazed and horrified, witnesses recounted an attack that began with terrifying suddenness.

“Everybody was looking at the fireworks, then the next thing we knew there was a noise behind us, and a truck drove straight past us,” said Philip Ezergailis, a 23-year-old bartender from Galway, Ireland. “Then it started speeding up and hitting people, so we realized it was an attack.”

The truck cut a bloody swath through the crowd, with some people desperately leaping aside, even running into the water to escape, but scores of others left crushed and maimed.

“I ran over to see if I could help, but I just saw bodies and body parts lying everywhere,” said Ezergailis, whose eyes were bloodshot and whose voice faltered in exhaustion as he spoke.

In the chaotic aftermath, spectators sought safety in bars, cafes, hotels and the homes of strangers, the panic compounded by the crashing of overburdened cellphone networks.

Julie Aubin, a New Yorker in Nice for a business trip, was relaxing and watching the fireworks from a hotel rooftop – and then, with nightmarish abruptness, was sickened by what she saw occurring below.

“I live in New York; I know what gunshots sound like, and they were definitely gunshots – then we saw people running,” she said. “It’s hard to describe how I felt when I realized what was going on – disgusted, shocked, scared.”

Hours later, in a small nod to a vanished normality, South African tourist Francois Nel returned to the cafe overlooking the promenade that he, with other patrons, had fled pell-mell as the attack unfolded. He wanted, he said, to settle his bill.

Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed to this report.

King reported from Washington, and special correspondent Harvey reported from Nice. Special correspondent Nabih Bulos contributed reporting from Amman, Jordan.

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