Latest: 'Islamic State' group claims responsibility for Berlin attack
The so-called 'Islamic State' group has claimed the Berlin truck attacker is an IS soldier "targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition" .
'IS' said in a statement from its Amaq news agency that the attacker "in Berlin is a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the attack in response to calls for targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition".
Germany is not involved in anti-'IS' combat operations, but has Tornado jets and a refuelling plane stationed in Turkey in support of the coalition fighting militants in Syria, as well as a frigate protecting a French aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, among other assets.
German prosecutors say a man arrested after the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market has been released because there is insufficient evidence to tie him to the rampage.
Federal prosecutors said the man, a Pakistani citizen who came to Germany last year as an asylum-seeker, denied involvement in the attack that killed 12 people and injured nearly 50 others.
They noted that witnesses were able to follow the truck's driver from the scene but lost track of him.
The man arrested matched witness descriptions of the truck driver, but investigators have not been able to prove he was in the truck's cab at the time of the attack.
Under German law, prosecutors have until the end of the calendar day following an arrest to seek a formal arrest warrant keeping a suspect in custody.
German investigators are treating the Berlin Christmas market attack as an act of terrorism - though there has been no claim of responsibility yet.
The country's most senior prosecutor Peter Frank told reporters it is not entirely clear whether there was one perpetrator or more in the attack, which left 12 people dead and around 50 others injured.
He said the suspect being held in custody "may not have been the perpetrator or belong to the group of perpetrators".
Mr Frank added the method used in the rampage was reminiscent of July's truck attack in Nice, France, and of Islamic extremist groups' "modus operandi".
The head of Germany's federal criminal police office said he cannot rule out the possibility that suspects involved in the attack could still be at large.
Holger Muench told reporters authorities are still not positive the suspect they have in custody is the driver of the truck. He added they have not yet found a pistol believed to have been used to kill the truck's passenger, and it is not known overall how many people were involved.
For those reasons, he said, authorities are "naturally on high alert and are investigating in all directions".
Mr Muench said six of the 12 people killed have been identified and are all Germans, but details of the other six victims have not yet been confirmed.
Police investigating the Berlin lorry attack believe they may have the wrong man and the real suspect could still be on the loose.
A Pakistani asylum seeker who was arrested over the attack on a market in the German capital has denied he is responsible, with reports that the person behind it may be armed and still at large.
The suspect, a 23-year-old who came to Germany on December 31 last year, was captured by police in the aftermath of the incident which left 12 people dead and dozens more injured.
But German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said the man has denied any involvement, and Berlin's police chief Klaus Kandt has said officials are unsure whether they have detained the real suspect.
According to German newspaper Die Welt, a police spokesman said: "We have got the wrong man, which means a new situation, because the actual attacker is still armed and free and can cause more damage."
Mr Kandt told reporters that police "haven't been able to confirm" whether the man held was the lorry's driver.
A suspect arrested after the truck attack which killed 12 people in Berlin "comes from Pakistan" and had applied for asylum, Germany's top security official has said.
Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said the suspect - who denies any involvement - entered Germany on December 31 2015, and arrived in Berlin in February.
He said authorities have no knowledge as yet of a claim of responsibility from Islamic State (IS).
Mr Maiziere said authorities have "no doubt" that the fatal ramming of a busy Christmas market in the German capital on Monday evening was an intentional attack.
He confirmed that 12 people were killed when a truck ploughed into a popular Christmas market filled with tourists and local people outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church near Berlin's Zoo station on Monday evening. Another 50 people were injured.
Among the dead was a Polish citizen found on the passenger seat of the truck with a gunshot wound.
The driver who rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in the heart of the German capital, killing at least 12 people and injuring nearly 50, did so intentionally, police said, and it is being treated as a suspected "terror attack".
Witnesses have described how the truck did not slow down as it approached crowds gathered around stalls last night.
A Polish man found in the vehicle died, with the truck's owner insisting it had been hijacked. The truck was loaded with steel beams.
Police have detained a man suspected of being the driver. German media reports suggest he is a refugee from Afghanistan or Pakistan in his early 20s, who arrived in Germany earlier this year.
The vehicle struck outside Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church late on Monday as tourists and locals were enjoying a traditional pre-Christmas evening near Berlin's Zoo station.
"Our investigators are working on the assumption that the truck was intentionally driven into the crowd at the Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz," Berlin police said on Twitter.
"All police measures concerning the suspected terror attack at Breitscheidplatz are being taken with great speed and the necessary care."
Numerous German media reported that the suspect, who was picked up about a mile and a quarter away from the crash site, was a Pakistani or Afghani citizen.
Berlin's public radio station RBB-Inforadio cited security sources saying the man entered Germany on December 31 2015. News agency dpa, also citing unnamed security sources, reported that he arrived in Germany as a refugee in February 2016. Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper reported that the man was known to police for minor crimes.
Die Welt daily reported that police raided a large shelter for asylum-seekers at Berlin's defunct Tempelhof airport overnight.
Berlin police declined to confirm the reports, but spokesman Winfried Wenzel said the suspect was being interrogated.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack German officials were cautious in characterising what had happened.
"I don't want to use the word 'attack' yet at the moment, although a lot speaks for it," Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told ARD television late on Monday. "There is a psychological effect in the whole country of the choice of words here, and we want to be very, very cautious and operate close to the actual investigation results, not with speculation."
Germany has not experienced any mass-casualty attacks by Islamic extremists, but has been increasingly wary since two attacks by asylum-seekers in the summer which were claimed by the Islamic State group. Five people were wounded in an axe rampage on a train near Wuerzburg and 15 in a bombing outside a bar in Ansbach, both in the southern state of Bavaria. Both attackers were killed.
Those attacks, and two others unrelated to Islamic extremism in the same week-long period, contributed to tensions in Germany over the arrival last year of 890,000 migrants.
Far-right groups and a nationalist party seized on Monday's attack, blaming German Chancellor Angela Merkel for what had happened.
"Under the cloak of helping people Merkel has completely surrendered our domestic security," said Frauke Petry, co-chairwoman of the Alternative for Germany party.
Manfred Weber, a member of Mrs Merkel's conservative party and leader of the European Parliament's biggest political grouping, cautioned against reaching sweeping verdicts following the attack. But he said it was important to ensure that extremists did not enter the country among those seeking refuge in Europe.
"The state must be able to check every refugee who comes here," he told German public broadcaster ARD.
The White House condemned "what appears to have been a terrorist attack". It came less than a month after the US State Department called for caution in markets and other public places across Europe, saying extremist groups including Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaida were focusing "on the upcoming holiday season and associated events".
IS and al-Qaida have both called on followers to use trucks in particular to attack crowds. On July 14, a truck ploughed into Bastille Day revellers in the southern French city of Nice, killing 86 people. IS claimed responsibility for that attack, which was carried out by a Tunisian living in France.
After the Berlin attack, dozens of ambulances lined the streets waiting to evacuate people, and heavily armed police patrolled. Authorities on Twitter urged people to stay away from the area, to keep the streets clear for rescue vehicles.
Among the dead was a man in the truck, who succumbed as paramedics treated him, police spokesman Mr Wenzel said. Police said later that the man was a Polish national, but did not give further details of who he was or what happened to him.
The Polish owner of the truck said he feared the vehicle may have been hijacked. Ariel Zurawski said he last spoke with the driver, his cousin, T around noon, and the driver told him he was in Berlin and scheduled to unload ON Tuesday morning. "They must have done something to my driver," he told TVN24.
Federal prosecutors, who handle terrorism cases, took over the investigation, according to German Justice Minister Heiko Maas. In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said the United States was ready to help in the investigation and response.
US President-elect Donald Trump said Islamic extremists must be "eradicated from the face of the earth" and pledged to carry out that mission with all "freedom-loving partners".
Berlin's mayor, Michael Mueller, planned to hold a news conference on the attack at 1pm local time.
The Archbishop of Berlin, Heiner Koch, said he would hold prayers for the victims at the St Hedwig Cathedral at noon.
- AP
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