The terror knife attack in Nice, in which three people died, was "planned and organized from abroad".

The 60-year-old woman who was beheaded in the Nice terrorist attack was a good-hearted, devout Catholic.

The married Nadine Devillers was a regular parishioner in the Church of Notre-Dame-de-l & # 39; Assomption.

Her husband burst into tears when he desperately called her 30-year-old friend to confirm that she had died in such dire circumstances.

Her childhood friend, Joelle Guichard, told the Var Matin newspaper: “She has been kind to a capital K.

“We have been friends for 30 years.

“I heard about the horror in Nice.

I immediately thought of Nadine.

“She lives not far from the cathedral and is a devout Catholic.

I took my phone to call her. I saw that I had a missed call, it was Nadine's husband.

As soon as he picked up the phone, when I heard his sobs, I understood.

"Is it her?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied. "She is it".

"It's an absolute nightmare," he added.

The two women grew up in Draguignan, a town in the Var region west of Nice.

Joelle added: “Nadine moved to Nice when she was 18.

"She had a strong and pure heart."

Ms. Guichard moved to Quebec, Canada, but kept in touch with regular phone calls.

The malicious knife attack on Notre Dame Cathedral in Nice, in which three people died, was planned and organized from abroad, according to French investigators.

The attacker's profile, the identity of his contacts and the speed of the attack suggest the atrocities were planned in advance by committed jihadists, Le Parisien newspaper reported earlier this morning.

It said: "After the murders on Thursday in the Notre-Dame de l & # 39; Assomption Basillica, the investigators questioned the origin, the profile, the contacts and the speed of action of the alleged attacker."

Meanwhile, the anti-terror police arrested a third man in connection with the atrocity.

The suspect, a 35-year-old from a shabby part of Nice, is said to have rubbed shoulders with the perpetrator the day before the attack, according to court sources.

The man was arrested at home in Nice, in the north, after 10 p.m. yesterday evening.

He is believed to have close ties to the 47-year-old who was arrested nearby on Thursday night.

Yesterday, the Tunisian terrorist's family announced that the knife attacker had turned to a hermit-like prayer life prior to the atrocity following a lifestyle of drinks and drugs.

The 21-year-old Brahim al-Aouissaoui beheaded a 60-year-old woman, cut the 55-year-old sexton Vincent Loques' throat and stabbed the mother of three Simone Barreto Silva (44) on Thursday morning in the Nizza Notre-Dame basilica.

He has been shot and tasered 14 times and remains in the hospital in critical condition.

Speaking from Sfax, Tunisia, his mother said Aoussaoui had left school and worked as a motorcycle mechanic, initially spending his wages on alcohol and drugs.

She told the telegraph: "I always said to him," We are poor and you are wasting money? "" He would answer. "" If God wants it, He will lead me on the right path, it's my business. ". & # 39;

But over the past two and a half years he has become increasingly religious and isolated.

"He prayed (and) went from home to work and back without mixing with anyone or leaving the house," said his mother.

His brother Yassine said Aoussaoui harvested olives in Italy after leaving Tunisia and then moved on to France.

The day before the attack, October 28, he called the family and said he had just arrived in the country and was sleeping in front of the church. He sent a photo of himself to the cathedral where the attack would take place.

"He didn't tell me anything," said Yassine. He added that he did not understand how to carry out the attack on Nice so soon after arriving in France.

The country's interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, said the attacker was "not on any of our security watch lists, either French or European," adding that France was "at war against Islamist extremism … an enemy that both internal as well as external is ". .

He told RTL Radio: "We have to understand that there have been and will be other events like these terrible attacks."

Mr Darmanin said after a high-level security meeting that 3,500 reserves in France's gendarme force would be called to provide a total of 7,000 security guards to local authorities to ensure security.

Starting next week, around 4,000 additional French troops will be mobilized to bring the number of participants in the ongoing Sentinelle security operation to 7,000, the army confirmed.

According to the country's judicial spokesman, Aoussaoui left his family's impoverished village, Bou Hajla in Tunisia, on or around September 15, after paying smugglers to take him to Europe.

Five days later, he landed with 28 other migrants on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, where records show that he was taken to a coronavirus quarantine center.

On September 25, he was transferred from the center to a quarantine ship, the Rhapsody, which was sailing towards the port city of Bari on the east coast of Italy.

The ship moored off the coast while the migrants waited for quarantine. Disembarkation began on October 8th. Aoussaoui was among those disembarking, with his fingerprints, name, and date of birth noted.

Border guards also took his picture – this shows him smiling while holding a card with the number & # 39; 104 & # 39; holds up. It captures the moment when Aoussaoui stepped onto mainland Europe.

Officials also conducted background checks which Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra reported came back clean. They found that Aoussaoui had no criminal background, had not tried to enter the country before, and was not on any international watch list.

Even so, Aoussaoui had no legal right to enter Europe and received a deportation order that gave him seven days to leave Italy.

What happened next is now under investigation. Despite the deportation order, Aoussaoui appears to have been liberated by Italian immigration officials. He did not return to Tunisia, but to France.

Corriere reports that border officials had divided the migrants into three groups – the first group consisted of 104 adults with a criminal background or other suspect who were taken to a detention center.

The second group consisted of 177 people, almost half of whom were children and were in temporary shelters. A third group of 104 people, including Aoussaoui, were not taken to a detention center or animal shelter, so they were free.

French security sources have also suggested that Aoussaoui should be deported, but Tunisia would not recognize him as a citizen. In the midst of the confusion, he simply left detention.

Investigations are currently ongoing in France, Italy and Tunisia to determine the exact chain of events.

From here, Aoussaoui's movements become less clear. Sometime between October 9 and 10, he seems to have left Bari on a train to Paris to bypass the French border controls.

After arriving in Paris, his movements and contacts are a mystery. However, it is believed that he stayed in and around the city until October 29, the day of the Nice attack.

That morning, an early train to Nice took off and, according to French investigators, arrived in the city at 6:30 a.m.

He is known to have taken a photo of the Notre Dame Basilica – the same church he would later attack – with a phone to send to his brother in Tunisia. He wanted to stay there overnight.

When the church opened at 8:30 am, he went inside before pulling out a 12-inch blade and launching his attack, killing three people in "terrible" ways.

The first to die was an as yet unidentified parishioner in their sixties, a regular at the church who had come to pray first thing in the morning and whose throat had been cut while attempting to behead near the cupboard.

The next to die was the 54-year-old sacristan of the Church, Vincent Loques, who had opened the doors to Aoussaoui and was preparing for mass. He should celebrate his birthday on Friday.

Another parishioner, Simone Barreto Silva, 44, who was born in Brazil, was stabbed several times but escaped from the church at around 8:54 a.m. and ran to a nearby burger bar where she bled to death.

The last words of the mother of three to the paramedics were: "Tell my children that I love them".

Friends in Brazil said Silva had been in France for 30 years. Brahim Jelloule, the owner of the restaurant she stumbled upon before she died, revealed the first time his brother saw Silva on the street covered in blood.

Jelloule, a Muslim, said his brother and a staff member dragged Silva into before going to church and confronting Aoussaoui, who was still in one armed with a knife.

The couple fled and called the police, who arrived around 9:10 a.m. and shot Aoussaoui 14 times when he saw & # 39; Allahu Akbar & # 39; cried – God is the greatest in Arabic – a sentence he kept shouting even after the calming down.

Investigators found two unused knives, a Koran and two cell phones, as well as a bag with some personal items. Ricard said at a press conference that he was unknown to the French security services.

A picture of Aoussaoui bleeding on the floor and being treated by paramedics after he was shot dead by police was tweeted by the head of the respected SITE organization.

Last night, police arrested a 47-year-old man in Nice who was believed to have been in contact with Aoussaoui the day before the attack and who may have given him a phone.

Investigators are investigating Aoussaoui's contacts and trying to determine whether he has been radicalized himself or has been ordered to carry out his attack by a terrorist group.

The attack came just days after Thabat, an al-Qaeda-affiliated press agency, published a call to Muslims to wage a “jihad” (holy war) in France over the cartoons of the prophet published by Charlie Hebdo.

Prosecutors in Tunisia have also opened an investigation into Aoussaoui's contacts and life before he left the country, including whether he had ties to terrorist groups.

The country's top prosecutor said the 21-year-old was not being monitored by anti-terrorist forces but would instead conduct further investigations.

Aoussaoui's family, who spoke from the impoverished Tunisian town of Bouhajla, where he lived before moving to Europe, said they had been in contact with them since arriving in France.

Mother Kmar, from the Tunisian province of Sfax, said with tearful eyes that she was surprised to hear that her son was in France when he called when he arrived and had no idea what he was up to.

"You don't know the French language, you don't know anyone there, you will live there alone, why, why did you go there?" she said she told him over the phone at the time.

She said Aoussaoui had turned to religion and isolated himself for the past two years.

"He prayed … (and) went from home to work and back without mingling with anyone or leaving the house," she said.

But before that he drank alcohol and did drugs. I always said to him: "We are poor and you are wasting money?" He replied, "If God wants it, he will lead me on the right path, it is my business."

His brother told Al Arabiya TV, “He told me he wanted to spend the night in front of the cathedral. He also sent me a photo of the building. He called me when he arrived in France. & # 39;

He then told the family about the shock that Brahim Aoussaoui was responsible for the terrorist attack.

"What we saw in the pictures is him, our son," they said.

Before leaving, Brahim had struggled to find a regular job and had done "various jobs," said a neighbor.

Meanwhile, the Tunisian judicial spokesman said Brahim was not classified as a hardliner and was not known to the security forces before leaving. He said Brahim left the country on or about September 14th.

The murders, which preceded the Catholic holiday of All Saints on Sunday – and the day Sunni Muslims celebrate the Prophet Muhammad's birthday – prompted the French government to raise the terrorist alert level nationwide to the maximum "emergency level".

The counter-terrorism police arrested a 47-year-old man in Nice last night on suspicion of being an accomplice to the knife man and gave him one of two cell phones that were used to find the attacker.

The man is said to have been in close contact with the 21-year-old jihadist on Wednesday, the day before the attack, police sources told the French media.

President Emmanuel Macron, who traveled quickly to Nice, announced that the surveillance of the churches by the French Sentinelle military patrols would increase from 3,000 to 7,000 soldiers.

School security will also be increased, he said. "Clearly, it is France that is under attack," said Macron, swearing to the country not to "give up our values".

Throwing his weight behind the Catholic Church, he said, "The entire nation will exist so that the religion can continue to be freely practiced in our country." He also called for "unity" and urged people "not to give in to the spirit of division".

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, speaking on French radio on Friday, added that France was "at war … against an ideology, the Islamist ideology, which seeks to impose its cultural codes, its way of life … through terror".

He said France is a "big target" for terrorists because it symbolizes freedom, secular society and the rule of law – a reference to the ongoing trial of 14 people charged with the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine.

"Islamism is a form of fascism in the 21st century," he added, "an extremism that we must fight."

Meanwhile, Eric Ciotti, MP for the Alpes-Maritime region, where Nice is located, said France had "become the preferred target of terrorists" and that Nice in particular had become a "city of martyrs".

After speaking to Macron since the attack, Ciotti said he had "noticed a change in the president's tone".

"He was very wrong in trying to create the impression of flattering the various communities," said Eric Ciotti. "I expect a profound, radical change in policy."

Ciotti said he had urged Macron to "stop all forms of immigration" and received assurances that a "moratorium on false asylum seekers" would follow shortly.

As part of the "change of tone", Darmanin confirmed that 18 suspected Islamists will be expelled from France in the coming days, in addition to 14 who were expelled after the decapitation of teacher Samuel Paty.

Mourners attended vigils to pay tribute to the victims of the triple murder last night. They lit candles in front of the Notre-Dame de l & # 39; Assomption basilica in Nice and in front of the French embassy in Berlin.

There were also tears in Tunisia, where the attacker's mother, Kmar, cried after being questioned by police at her home in Sfax.

The attack comes amid the anger in the Islamic world against President Macron for defending satirical caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed and on the day Sunni Muslims celebrate the Prophet's birthday.

Several Muslim-majority countries launched campaigns to boycott French products, while protesters burned Macron's tricolors and posters at demonstrations in Syria, Libya, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine.

Also on a day of terror for France:

• A security guard at the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was stabbed and wounded.
• A man armed with a knife was arrested near a church in Sartrouville after swearing to "do as in Nice".
• An Afghan man was arrested in Lyon and tried to board a train with a long knife.
• Malaysia's ex-prime minister said Muslims have the right to "kill millions of French people" if Islam is insulted.
• French politicians lined up to demand tougher action against what the mayor of Nice called "Islamo-fascism".
• Online jihadists celebrated the triple murder in France and Saudi Arabia yesterday, according to a report from SITE

Elsewhere, a man was arrested at around 1pm on Thursday in Sartrouville, north of Paris, after his father called the police and said his son had left home planning to "do as he did in Nice".

Police stopped the man in his car near a local church and Le Parisien reports that he was in possession of a knife. The car was searched but nothing else was found.

Meanwhile, in Lyon, an Afghan was arrested in his twenties while trying to get on a tram with a long knife. The man was known to the French secret services.

In Avignon, a man armed with a pistol began threatening people in Montfavet around 11.15 a.m.

Police rushed to the scene and confronted the man who refused to drop his gun. The police then shot the man with a taser, which couldn't stop him. They opened fire with live ammunition and killed him.

The man was originally believed to be an Islamist and French media reported that he shouted "Allahu Akbar".

However, it was later revealed that he was a right-wing extremist belonging to the anti-Islam identity movement who welcomed the Nazis.

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, a man was arrested after stabbing a guard at the French consulate with "a sharp tool". The attacker was arrested while the guard was being rushed to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The French embassy in Riyadh condemned the "attack on diplomatic premises that can never be justified".

French diplomats also urged the Saudi authorities to "shed light on this attack" and ensure the security of the French in the kingdom.

"We urge our colleagues in Saudi Arabia to show maximum vigilance," the embassy said after the Saudi security forces arrested the suspect, who allegedly is a Saudi citizen in his forties.

The Nice attack came less than half a mile from where another attacker plowed a truck into a crowd on Bastille Day in 2016, killing dozen.

Despite the attack, protests against France and Macron continued on Friday. Thousands of Muslim worshipers left the Friday prayers in Pakistan and took to the streets, chanting anti-French slogans and calling for a boycott of French products.

An estimated 2,000 worshipers took to the streets in the eastern city of Lahore celebrating Mawlid, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad.

Dozens of people angrily stamped French flags and wept over the boycott of French products. In Multan, a city in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, thousands burned a portrait of French President Emmanuel Macron and called on Pakistan to cut ties with France.

Further gatherings were planned for later Friday in Pakistan, including the capital, Islamabad, where police were in place to prevent possible demonstrations outside the French embassy. The atmosphere was tense when the police set up shipping containers to block the streets.

Further protests, largely organized by Islamists, are expected across the region, including Lebanon and Gaza.

In Afghanistan, members of the Islamist Hezb-i-Islami party set the French flag on fire. Its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, warned Macron that if he "doesn't control the situation, we will go into a third world war and Europe will be responsible".

In the past week, protests and calls for a boycott against French products have spread rapidly from Bangladesh via Pakistan to Kuwait. Social media pulsed with anti-France hashtags.

Die muslimischen Führer, insbesondere der türkische Präsident Recep Tayyip Erdogan, haben Frankreich lautstark dafür kritisiert, was sie als provokative und anti-muslimische Haltung der Regierung ansehen.

French politicians were taking part in a debate over the country's new coronavirus restrictions when news of the attack reached them.

They observed a minute's silence before the debate was interrupted to allow a security meeting to be held.

Following the meeting, Prime Minister Jean Castex moved the threat level from "attack risk" to "emergency level", which means threats are imminent.

Pictures in French media showed that the neighborhood was locked and surrounded by police and emergency vehicles. Explosion noises were heard as pioneers exploded suspicious objects.

The Catholic Church issued a statement condemning the "unspeakable act" and saying that "Christians must not become a symbol to be cut down".

The Catholic bishops in France urged all church bells to ring at 3pm in solidarity with the victims before adding, “It is imperative to stop this burn as there is an urgent need to find the indispensable fraternity that brings us all keeps up these threats & # 39;

Pope Francis was among those who sparked sympathy and said, "I pray for the victims, for their families and for the French people we love so that they can respond to evil with good."

Former French Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande also issued statements condemning an "act of barbarism" and calling on people to oppose "enemies of democracy". while the latter swore that "democracy is our weapon … in the face of Islamist terrorism".

Tunisia strongly condemned a deadly "terrorist attack" on the Church in Nice and said it opened an investigation after it was reported that the attacker was Tunisian.

"Tunisia strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Nice and expresses its solidarity with the government and the French people," said a statement by the Foreign Ministry.

The North African state emphasized its "rejection of all forms of terrorism and extremism" and warned against "ideological and political exploitation of religions".

The assailant, who was shot and arrested by police, is reportedly a Tunisian migrant who recently entered France via Lampedusa, Italy.

The conviction came from US President Donald Trump, UN chief Antonio Guterres and European, Arab and Israeli leaders.

“Our hearts are with the people of France. America stands with our oldest ally in this battle, ”Trump tweeted. & # 39; These radical Islamic terrorist attacks must stop immediately. No country, France or anything else can take it for long! & # 39;

Democratic White House candidate Joe Biden promised to fight against "extremist violence" in his election.

"Jill and I keep the French people in our prayers after the terrible terrorist attack in Nice that targeted innocents in a place of worship," he said on Twitter.

"A Biden Harris administration will work with our allies and partners to prevent extremist violence in all forms."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences to French President Emmanuel Macron and the families of the victims of the Nice attack.

In a telegram quoted by the Kremlin, Putin called the attack "a cynical and cruel crime within a church" and said that "the idea of ​​human morality is absolutely alien to terrorists".

On Thursday, Saudi Arabia "strongly condemned" fatal knife wounds in the French city of Nice, which the authorities are investigating as the latest terrorist attack in France.

A man with knives killed three people in a church in Nice on Thursday and cut at least one of their throats in an attack that triggered a global shock.

"We condemn and strongly condemn the terrorist attack … in Nice, France, in which a number of people were killed and injured," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.

"We reaffirm the Kingdom's categorical rejection of such extremist acts that are incompatible with all religions, human beliefs and common sense, and we reaffirm the importance of rejecting practices that generate hatred, violence and extremism."

The French Council on Muslim Worship also issued a statement strongly condemning the attack.

"As a sign of sadness and solidarity with the victims and their relatives, I urge the Muslims of France to cancel all celebrations of the Mawlid festival", which will take place on October 28th and 29th.

The attack is only the last to hit France after history teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded in another attack north of Paris.

Paty was stabbed to death by an 18-year-old Chechen man after showing the cartoons to his students during a free speech lesson.

The parents of the students at the school had campaigned against him before the attack. Seven were arrested.

Just a few weeks earlier, an 18-year-old Pakistani stabbed two wounded in front of the old offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The man has admitted to police that he was targeting the magazine for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also spoke out to condemn the attack and tweeted: “I am appalled to hear news of a barbaric attack on the Notre Dame Basilica from Nice this morning.

"Our thoughts are with the victims and their families, and Britain stands firmly against France against terror and intolerance."

Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed "solidarity" with France and said she was "deeply moved by the cruel murders in a church in Nice".

"I condemn the heinous and brutal attack that just took place in Nice and I am with France wholeheartedly," tweeted the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

"We will remain united and determined in the face of barbarism and fanaticism."

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte condemned a “cowardly attack” and said: “Our convictions are stronger than fanaticism, hatred and terror. We hug the families of the victims and our French brothers. We are united! & # 39;

His Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez added: "We continue to defend freedom, our democratic values, the peace and security of our citizens."

A harsher tone came from Hungary, where populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote that the attack clearly showed that our culture, our way of life and our European values ​​are in the crosshairs of extremist terrorism.

"We are ready to join forces to protect traditional European values ​​and the traditional European way of life," Orban added.

The Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who previously ruled with extreme right-wing ministers, described the murders in Nice as a despicable Islamist terrorist attack.

& # 39; France has our full solidarity. We will defend our values ​​and our European "way of life" with all our might against Islamists and political Islam, "said Kurz.

There are also mass protests against Emmanuel Macron in many Islamic countries after the French President spoke out in favor of the cartoons.

He tweeted in Arabic and wrote, “Nothing can ever hold us back. We respect all differences in the spirit of peace. We never accept hate speech and defend rational debate.

"We will always stand by human dignity and universal values."

His remarks have sparked demonstrations in Gaza, Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh and boycotts of French products in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the Palestinian Territories.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has outraged Macron, pointing out that he is mentally ill and needs to examine his health.

On Thursday, Ankara said he had sharply condemned the "wild" knife attack on Thursday in southern France, in which three people were killed, and showed his "solidarity", although he diplomatically spat with Paris.

"We strongly condemn the attack that took place today in the Notre Dame Church in Nice," said a statement from the State Department, while we extend our condolences to the families of the victims.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said it was standing as a government and as a people with … France in combating this hateful incident. Qatar issued a strong condemnation and reiterated its opposition to violence and terrorism, especially against places of worship and regardless of the motive

The State Department also expressed its condolences to the victim's families.

Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri expressed his "strongest condemnation and disapproval of the heinous criminal attack" and urged Muslims to "reject this criminal act that has nothing to do with Islam or the Prophet".

The anger of the Islamic world against France intensified on Wednesday when Turkey condemned a Charlie Hebdo cartoon in which its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lifted a woman's burqa to look at her bare bum.

Erdogan called the cartoonists "villains" and accused the West of trying to "restart" the Crusades by attacking Islam after the picture appeared on the front of this week's magazine.

"I don't have to say anything to these villains who offend my beloved prophet to such an extent," said Erdogan, calling it a "disgusting attack".

Erdogan's spokesman on Thursday diverted the blame for the attack in France, saying: "We categorically deny any effort to associate ourselves with any type of violence."

“We will continue to confront any politician who offends our religion and values. We believe we don't owe anyone an apology for expressing our strong opposition to racism and xenophobia, ”he said.

“Our President has always called for cooperation against terrorism and extremism. We renew this appeal while rejecting the harmful rhetoric and actions against our religion and culture, whatever their ideological source. & # 39;

Erdogan shows Erdogan in a t-shirt and underpants. In his caricature he says "Ooh, the Prophet" while looking at the woman's bottom, and is headed: "Erdogan – privately he's very funny".

A Charlie Hebdo cartoon showing the naked prophet's bum was the image French school teacher Paty showed his class in the lesson that led to his murder and beheading earlier this month.

President Macron has vigorously defended freedom of expression and the right to mock religion after the terrorist attack, but has become a target of anger in the Islamic world.

Turkey has vowed to take "legal diplomatic measures" in response to the cartoon, while Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan called for an end to the "attacks on Islam". The West should be ready to treat blasphemy in the same way as it treats denial of the Holocaust.

In der Zwischenzeit zielte der iranische Präsident Hassan Rouhani auch auf Frankreich, indem er warnte, dass eine Beleidigung des Propheten "Gewalt und Blutvergießen" fördern würde.