France investigates ISIS claim of responsibility for Nice attack

French authorities are investigating the Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the Thursday night attack in Nice, France, which killed at least 84 Bastille Day revelers, including two Americans.

The Nice suspect, Mohamed Bouhlel, who was killed by police during his rampage, "was one of the soldiers of Islamic State," ISIS announced in a statement Saturday. "He carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of states that are part of the coalition fighting Islamic State."

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Saturday any radicalization must have happened "very quickly," because Bouhlel, a French national of Tunisian descent, was not known to local or national intelligence agencies as having ties to radicalism, despite extensive French surveillance measures. His encounters with local law enforcement via a history of petty crime did not raise more serious red flags, and one of his relatives described Bouhlel as a poor fit for ISIS' fundamentalist brand of Islamic practice, saying he was "not religious — he did not go to the mosque, he did not pray, he did not observe Ramadan. He drank alcohol, ate pork, and took drugs."

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This post has been updated throughout.