French Minister: Nice Attacker Not Linked to Terrorist Groups

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday that a link between terrorist networks and the attacker who killed 84 people in the city of Nice had not yet been established.

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“Those links, for the moment, have yet to be established by the investigation. So we must still be prudent with what we say on that subject,” Cazeneuve told RTL France.

Cazeneuve maintained that the attack was "of a terrorist nature," despite the fact that the attacker, identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, gave no indication he was motivated by politics or religion.

The effort to establish a connection between Bouhlel and terrorism seems to be largely driven by the attacker's ethnicity and not any evidence.

Bouhlel, who was killed by police, did not leave behind any declarations or evidence to suggest he was linked to terrorist groups.

The attacker, a 31-year-old Nice resident born in Tunisia, had a history of threats, violence and theft had caused him several run-ins with the law previously but was not on the radar of French intelligence services.

The interior minister said Saturday that Bouhlel “radicalized very quickly,” but the attacker's father said he was a troubled man, who was not religious, and suggested that his son suffered from depression.

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The Islamic State group seemed to claim responsibility for the attack, saying he was a “soldier” who had responded to “calls to target nations of coalition states that are fighting (IS).”

However, it is likely the Islamic State group was merely taking credit for the attack in order to project the image that is capable of regularly carrying out high-profile attacks inside Western countries.

Nonetheless, Cazeneuve appeared to insist there was a connection.

“Daesh inspires this terrorist mindset that we are fighting against. So that makes it necessary for us to maintain the fight abroad, to continue to fight Daesh where they are, and to continue to fight Daesh on our own territory, while ensuring the safety of French people,” said Cazeneuve, using the term Daesh to identify the organization more commonly known as the Islamic State group.

Shortly after the attack in Nice, French Prime Minister Francois Hollande said that he would escalate military action in Syria and Iraq.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday that French armed forces had struck Islamic State group bases overnight.