CHRISTMAS SHOP OF HORRORS
‘Terror’ trucker in Berlin market massacre
A big rig cruising at 40 mph plowed into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin Monday night, killing at least 12 people in a suspected terrorist attack.
The crash happened in Breitscheidplatz square in the western part of the German capital at around 8 p.m. and left nearly 50 people injured.
The driver of the Scania truck was apprehended but has yet to be identified. He is believed to be a Pakistani refugee who arrived in Germany in February, according to local reports.
Hours after the attack, a Shiite group fighting ISIS in Iraq tweeted that the terrorist group had claimed responsibility, The Washington Times reported.
A man who was said to have been in the truck at the time of the crash was found dead inside its cab, although it was unclear how he perished. Berlin police later confirmed on Twitter that he was a Polish citizen.
Berlin police said early Tuesday that the attack was done on purpose. Officials said the truck appeared to have been stolen or hijacked. It had Polish license plates and belonged to a Polish delivery company, The Guardian reported.
The company later told Agence France-Presse that the 37-yearold driver was missing and that he had been transporting Thyssen steel products from Italy to Berlin at the time.
It was unclear whether the man found dead in the truck was that driver.
The incident was similar to the Bastille Day terror attack in Nice, France, on July 14, in which a French-Tunisian national plowed a cargo truck into a crowd of holi- day revelers, killing 86 and injuring more than 400.
ISIS claimed responsibility for that horror.
Witnesses to Monday’s Berlin attack said the truck was going about 40 mph when it hopped the curb and careered through a group of vendors’ stalls.
“We were enjoying the Christmas lights and some mulled wine, and as we sat . . . we heard a loud bang,” recalled Emma Rushton, who was just feet away from the 18-wheeler when it crashed into the market.
“Then we started to see to our left that the Christmas lights were being torn down, and we started to see the top of an articulated truck, a lorry, just crushing through the stores and through people,” she told CNN.
The truck traveled between 50 and 80 yards before coming to a halt, police said.
Asked whether the crash was accidental, Rushton told CNN that it seemed intentional.
“There’s no way it could have just come off [the road] as an accident,” she said. “It went through the middle of the market.”
Footage posted online by shoppers showed the aftermath, including bodies scattered through- out the market and rows of broken stalls. Video from Berliner Morgenpost reporter Daniel Nisman showed the all-black semi wedged up on the curb.
After the crash, the driver reportedly fled the scene, darting off toward Berlin’s central park, known as the Tiergarten, where he was captured.
The attack came less than a month after the State Department issued a travel advisory for US citizens in Europe, warning that it had obtained “credible information” of possible terrorist plots to strike at Christmas and holiday events, such as crowded markets.
Officials warned that ISIS and al Qaeda had been planning attacks for months, with a focus on the holiday season. The travel advisory will remain in place until Feb. 20.
The White House called the incident an apparent terror attack.
“The United States condemns in the strongest terms what appears to have been a terrorist attack on a Christmas Market in Berlin, Germany, which has killed and wounded dozens,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement posted on the White House Web site.
While police did not officially identify a suspect or declare a motive, President-elect Donald Trump blamed the incident on “Islamist terrorists,” saying they targeted “innocent” Christians as they “prepared to celebrate the Christmas holiday.”
“Our hearts and prayers are with the loved ones of the victims of today’s horrifying terror attack in Berlin,” he said in a statement Monday night.
“Innocent civilians were murdered in the streets as they prepared to celebrate the Christmas holiday. ISIS and other Islamist terrorists continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad.
“These terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks must be eradicated from the face of the earth, a mission we will carry out with all freedom-loving partners.”
Trump also fired off a tweet in which he hinted at taking a stand against global terrorism.
“Today there were terror attacks in Turkey, Switzerland and Germany — and it is only getting worse. The civilized world must change thinking!” he said.