Nice Church Attacker Contacted Family In Tunisia Before Assault - Reports

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th October, 2020) The perpetrator of the terrorist attack in France's Nice southern city had contacted his family in Tunisia shortly before the assault, sending them images of the targeted church, the Al-Arabiya broadcaster reported on Friday, citing the attacker's brother.

Ibrahim Issaoui, a 21-year-old man from Tunisia, killed three people in a knife attack in the Notre-Dame de Nice basilica on Thursday morning. The French government has designated it a terrorist attack.

The attacker's brother told Al-Arabiya that Issaoui contacted him on the evening before the attack and said that he was going to spend the night next to the church. The attacker also sent him a picture of himself standing in front of the church, according to the report.

The family's neighbors back in Tunisia, as cited in the report, do not recall the attacker demonstrating any particular inclination to extremism or terrorism.

The perpetrator is in police custody, currently hospitalized with wounds sustained during the arrest. Another suspect was detained on Thursday as the investigation into the attack continues.

Issaoui killed two of his victims by cutting their throats, a gruesome murder echoing another one that shook France two weeks ago. On October 16, French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded in Paris by a teen Muslim who supposedly found it offensive that the teacher showed media-borne caricatures of Islamic prophet Muhammad during a freedom of speech lesson.

France stepped up security provisions inside the country and in its diplomatic premises in the aftermath of the attacks. The authorities are poised to reinforce protection of places of worship, particularly churches, and mobilize additional troops for the Sentinelle counterterrorist operation. French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to counter religiously-motivated violence in France that goes against the secular republic's national values.