Liars, it was me! I'm responsible!. There, see how easy it is to claim responsibility?:
The German capital was on high alert Tuesday with one or more suspects still at large in the deadly truck assault on a Christmas market, even as the Islamic State claimed responsibility for an act that struck at the heart of Europe’s Christian traditions.
Chancellor Angela Merkel decried the assault — which left 12 dead and 52 injured after a truck carrying a payload of steel careened into festive stalls and fairgoers in Berlin — as a presumed “terror attack,” even as German police scrambled to find the culprit. The only suspect to date — a Pakistani asylum seeker taken into custody shortly after Monday’s bloodshed — was released by police late Tuesday because of insufficient evidence.
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Late Tuesday, the Islamic State, through the Amaq news agency linked to the group, claimed the attacker was a “soldier” responding to its call to target coalition nations. The group has wielded the term before to describe lone wolves inspired by its rhetoric, and it remained unclear its level of involvement, if any, in coordinating the attack.
[Berlin attack: How the events unfolded]
In Germany and across Europe, revulsion and angst over the strike at a joyous symbol of the region’s Christmas traditions sparked governments to act. The holiday spirit was being replaced by muscle.
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A truck rams the crowd at Berlin Christmas market, killing at least 12 people
.
Italy said it would ramp up security for Christmas events, including Pope Francis’s appearance at St. Peter's Square. The Czechs pledged “massive” security at public events on Christmas and as the country rings in the new year. French officials said security at Christmas markets were immediately reinforced even as its lawmakers observed a minute of silence for the all-too-familiar tragedy in Germany.
In Berlin, meanwhile, the release of their only suspect left police scrambling for fresh leads in the assault. German police accelerated efforts to study forensic evidence, including analysis of blood stains within the cabin of the truck — turned into a weapon in a tactic used just five months earlier in a similar holiday rampage on France’s southern coast.
Investigation teams moved to piece together what they described as “circumstantial evidence,” including witness descriptions and video footage. But no criminal sketches were released to the public, suggesting how much remained unknown. And as night settled on the gritty German capital, Berliners were cautioned to stay on guard.
“It is the case that we possibly still have a dangerous offender in our area,” warned Berlin’s police chief, Klaus Kandt. “These days it is necessary to be vigilant.”
[After Berlin, security tightens at Christmas markets]
The attack, officials concluded by Tuesday, was almost certainly deliberate.
A Polish national was driving the truck when it left Poland en route to deliver a cargo of steel in Berlin. The driver was found shot dead in the passenger seat.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/a-history-of-terrorism-in-europe/
Holger Münch, president of the Federal Office for Criminal Investigation, said police were “highly alarmed” because they did not know who was behind the attack and the gun used on the victim in the truck had not been found.
The modus operandi and target, officials said, indicated — but offered no confirmation — that Islamist extremists may have been involved.
The Islamic State has previously cited traditional Christmas markets as viable marks in their wave of terror in Europe, and the Berlin assault was reminiscent of the truck-on-sidewalk tactic used by a self-proclaimed Islamic State adherent in Nice, France, last July. That attack resulted in the deaths of 86 people on the Promenade des Anglais on Bastille Day, another festive moment.
[Trump cites holy war in Berlin even before facts are clear]
German authorities beefed up security at important sites in Berlin and elsewhere, while a false bomb scare caused the evacuation of the train station in Cologne. Flags were flown at half-staff across Germany, even as the city’s markets shut down for the day out of respect for the dead.
Across Europe, nations raised their terror alerts and put more police on the streets. London’s Metropolitan Police department, for instance, said Tuesday that it would review its plans for securing Christmas and New Year’s celebrations following the Berlin attacks.
The plans, the department said in a statement, “already recognize that the threat level is at ‘severe,’ meaning an attack is highly likely, and have considered a range of threats, including the use of large vehicles.”
[In Nice truck rampage, experts see shift toward cruder acts of terror]
Merkel — who laid white roses at the attack site at the normally bustling plaza at Breitscheidplatz in a chic shopping district in west Berlin — called on Germans not to give into fear as the holidays approached.
“We don't want to live with the fear of evil paralyzing us,” said Merkel, dressed in black as she spoke in Berlin. “We will find the strength for a life as we want to live it in Germany: free, united, and open.”
Earlier, Merkel spoke to President Obama by phone, and he pledged U.S. aid in the German investigation. As of late Tuesday, only seven of the bodies had been identified — that of the Polish driver and six Germans killed at the market.
German authorities — accused of mishandling other terror-related cases this year — were under mounting pressure to catch the culprit even as questions arose about security measures at the market.
[Europe’s open borders also means potential pipeline for weapons]
That a threat existed was well known. The State Department issued a specific travel warning to Americans that “credible information indicates the [Islamic State], al-Qaeda and their affiliates continue to plan terrorist attacks in Europe, with a focus on the upcoming holiday season and associated events.”
Yet the Christmas market attacked on Monday appeared to lack basic protections, such as concrete barriers, to warn off a Nice-like attack.
“We cannot turn Christmas markets into fortresses,” Kandt countered.
By midday on Tuesday, German authorities were losing confidence that they had caught the right suspect.
The 23-year-old Pakistani had first arrived in Germany last December, before coming to Berlin in February. Police knew him, officials said, although they would not say precisely for what. During their investigation into the man, German police raided a refugee shelter housed in Berlin’s old Tempelhof airport, where the suspect appears to have lived. Following the raid, officials began to backtrack until prosecutors issued orders to release him.
“The forensic examinations that were carried out could not prove the presence of the accused in the driver's cab of the truck at the time of the crime so far,” the prosecutors said in a statement.
But the mere prospect of an asylum seeker’s involvement fueled the debate in Germany over Merkel’s decision to allow in nearly a million migrants last year, many of them fleeing war in the Middle East. The chancellor was coming under fire by critics Tuesday for opening Germany’s door to asylum seekers, as well as to risk.
European asylum procedures have been criticized as lacking in robust vetting. On Tuesday, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière described a chaotic processing of the Pakistani suspect’s asylum case. Several attempts to hear his claim failed, the minister said, “because he did not appear” for assessment.
A later hearing ended in failure when the suspect claimed he spoke Balochi, a language for which German officials did not have a translator.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...n-345pm:homepage/story&utm_term=.89d477c78447
The German capital was on high alert Tuesday with one or more suspects still at large in the deadly truck assault on a Christmas market, even as the Islamic State claimed responsibility for an act that struck at the heart of Europe’s Christian traditions.
Chancellor Angela Merkel decried the assault — which left 12 dead and 52 injured after a truck carrying a payload of steel careened into festive stalls and fairgoers in Berlin — as a presumed “terror attack,” even as German police scrambled to find the culprit. The only suspect to date — a Pakistani asylum seeker taken into custody shortly after Monday’s bloodshed — was released by police late Tuesday because of insufficient evidence.
ADVERTISING
Late Tuesday, the Islamic State, through the Amaq news agency linked to the group, claimed the attacker was a “soldier” responding to its call to target coalition nations. The group has wielded the term before to describe lone wolves inspired by its rhetoric, and it remained unclear its level of involvement, if any, in coordinating the attack.
[Berlin attack: How the events unfolded]
In Germany and across Europe, revulsion and angst over the strike at a joyous symbol of the region’s Christmas traditions sparked governments to act. The holiday spirit was being replaced by muscle.
" type="text">
A truck rams the crowd at Berlin Christmas market, killing at least 12 people
.
Italy said it would ramp up security for Christmas events, including Pope Francis’s appearance at St. Peter's Square. The Czechs pledged “massive” security at public events on Christmas and as the country rings in the new year. French officials said security at Christmas markets were immediately reinforced even as its lawmakers observed a minute of silence for the all-too-familiar tragedy in Germany.
In Berlin, meanwhile, the release of their only suspect left police scrambling for fresh leads in the assault. German police accelerated efforts to study forensic evidence, including analysis of blood stains within the cabin of the truck — turned into a weapon in a tactic used just five months earlier in a similar holiday rampage on France’s southern coast.
Investigation teams moved to piece together what they described as “circumstantial evidence,” including witness descriptions and video footage. But no criminal sketches were released to the public, suggesting how much remained unknown. And as night settled on the gritty German capital, Berliners were cautioned to stay on guard.
“It is the case that we possibly still have a dangerous offender in our area,” warned Berlin’s police chief, Klaus Kandt. “These days it is necessary to be vigilant.”
[After Berlin, security tightens at Christmas markets]
The attack, officials concluded by Tuesday, was almost certainly deliberate.
A Polish national was driving the truck when it left Poland en route to deliver a cargo of steel in Berlin. The driver was found shot dead in the passenger seat.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/a-history-of-terrorism-in-europe/
Holger Münch, president of the Federal Office for Criminal Investigation, said police were “highly alarmed” because they did not know who was behind the attack and the gun used on the victim in the truck had not been found.
The modus operandi and target, officials said, indicated — but offered no confirmation — that Islamist extremists may have been involved.
The Islamic State has previously cited traditional Christmas markets as viable marks in their wave of terror in Europe, and the Berlin assault was reminiscent of the truck-on-sidewalk tactic used by a self-proclaimed Islamic State adherent in Nice, France, last July. That attack resulted in the deaths of 86 people on the Promenade des Anglais on Bastille Day, another festive moment.
[Trump cites holy war in Berlin even before facts are clear]
German authorities beefed up security at important sites in Berlin and elsewhere, while a false bomb scare caused the evacuation of the train station in Cologne. Flags were flown at half-staff across Germany, even as the city’s markets shut down for the day out of respect for the dead.
Across Europe, nations raised their terror alerts and put more police on the streets. London’s Metropolitan Police department, for instance, said Tuesday that it would review its plans for securing Christmas and New Year’s celebrations following the Berlin attacks.
The plans, the department said in a statement, “already recognize that the threat level is at ‘severe,’ meaning an attack is highly likely, and have considered a range of threats, including the use of large vehicles.”
[In Nice truck rampage, experts see shift toward cruder acts of terror]
Merkel — who laid white roses at the attack site at the normally bustling plaza at Breitscheidplatz in a chic shopping district in west Berlin — called on Germans not to give into fear as the holidays approached.
“We don't want to live with the fear of evil paralyzing us,” said Merkel, dressed in black as she spoke in Berlin. “We will find the strength for a life as we want to live it in Germany: free, united, and open.”
Earlier, Merkel spoke to President Obama by phone, and he pledged U.S. aid in the German investigation. As of late Tuesday, only seven of the bodies had been identified — that of the Polish driver and six Germans killed at the market.
German authorities — accused of mishandling other terror-related cases this year — were under mounting pressure to catch the culprit even as questions arose about security measures at the market.
[Europe’s open borders also means potential pipeline for weapons]
That a threat existed was well known. The State Department issued a specific travel warning to Americans that “credible information indicates the [Islamic State], al-Qaeda and their affiliates continue to plan terrorist attacks in Europe, with a focus on the upcoming holiday season and associated events.”
Yet the Christmas market attacked on Monday appeared to lack basic protections, such as concrete barriers, to warn off a Nice-like attack.
“We cannot turn Christmas markets into fortresses,” Kandt countered.
By midday on Tuesday, German authorities were losing confidence that they had caught the right suspect.
The 23-year-old Pakistani had first arrived in Germany last December, before coming to Berlin in February. Police knew him, officials said, although they would not say precisely for what. During their investigation into the man, German police raided a refugee shelter housed in Berlin’s old Tempelhof airport, where the suspect appears to have lived. Following the raid, officials began to backtrack until prosecutors issued orders to release him.
“The forensic examinations that were carried out could not prove the presence of the accused in the driver's cab of the truck at the time of the crime so far,” the prosecutors said in a statement.
But the mere prospect of an asylum seeker’s involvement fueled the debate in Germany over Merkel’s decision to allow in nearly a million migrants last year, many of them fleeing war in the Middle East. The chancellor was coming under fire by critics Tuesday for opening Germany’s door to asylum seekers, as well as to risk.
European asylum procedures have been criticized as lacking in robust vetting. On Tuesday, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière described a chaotic processing of the Pakistani suspect’s asylum case. Several attempts to hear his claim failed, the minister said, “because he did not appear” for assessment.
A later hearing ended in failure when the suspect claimed he spoke Balochi, a language for which German officials did not have a translator.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...n-345pm:homepage/story&utm_term=.89d477c78447
