Islamic State claims Berlin Christmas market attack

BERLIN — The Islamic State claimed responsibility Tuesday for a truck attack on a crowded Berlin Christmas market that German authorities said came right out of the extremist group’s playbook, inflflicting mass casualties on a soft target fraught with symbolic meaning.

The Monday night attack on the popular market by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the heart of the former West Berlin left 12 dead and 48 injured — the fifirst mass casualty attack by Islamic extremists carried out on German soil. German security forces were still hunting for the perpetrator after releasing a man from custody for lack of evidence.

The claim of responsibilit y carried on the Islamic State group’s Amaq news agency described the man seen flfleeing from the truck as “a soldier of the Islamic State” who “carried out the attack in response to calls for targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition.”

Germany is not involved in anti-Islamic State combat operations, but has Tornado jets and a refueling plane stationed in Turkey in support of the coalition fifighting militants in Syria, as well as a frigate protecting a French aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, among other assets.

The claim of responsibility came not long after German prosecutors said they had released a man picked up near the scene of the attack, initially suspected of driving the truck.

The man, a Pakistani citizen who came to Germany last year, was taken into custody based on a description from witnesses of a suspect who jumped out of the truck and flfled after the attack.

Even before his release, o f f i c i a l s h a d e x p r e s s e d doubt the man was behind the attack.

“We may still have a dangerous criminal out there,” warned Berlin police chief Klaus Kandt, whose offiffice urged people to be “particularly vigilant” and report “s u s p i c i o u s movement” using a special hotline.

Germany’s top prosecutor, Peter Frank, told reporters the attack on the popular market was reminiscent of July’s deadly truck rampage in Nice and appeared to follow instructions published by the Islamic State group.

“There is also the prominent and symbolic target of a Christmas market, and the modus operandi that mirrors at least past calls by jihadi terror organizations,” Frank said.

I n Wa s h i n g t o n , S t a t e Department spokesman John Kirby said the attack “bears the hallmarks of previous terror attacks,” but U.S. offifficials didn’t have enough information to back up the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.

“There is no direct evidence of a tie or a link to a terrorist organization,” he said.

The man arrested near the scene denied any involvement in the attack. Under German law, prosecutors have until the end of a calendar day following an arrest to seek a formal arrest warrant keeping a suspect in custody.

P r o s e c u t o r s s a i d t h e y decided to release him after turning up no forensic evidence proving he was in the truck’s cab during the rampage, and no witnesses who had followed him from the scene to where he was picked up.

Witnesses saw only one man flee from the truck, which hurtled more than 200 feet through the market before coming to a stop near the 19th-century church. The head of the Federal Criminal Police Offiffice said authorities had yet to fifind a pistol that is believed to have been used to kill the Polish truck driver who was supposed to be driving the truck.