Berlin terror attack: Lorry ploughs into crowd of shoppers killing nine, trapping others and leaving 50 injured at Christmas market, by Amie Gordon.
A refugee is thought to have been behind the wheel of a 25-tonne articulated lorry which mowed down and killed nine people – and injured 45 others – as it sped at 40mph through a busy Christmas market in Berlin.
As German police, the White House and the German Interior Minister indicated the incident was terror related, ISIS moved quickly to claim responsibility for the fatal attack.
The vehicle laden with steel cargo mounted the pavement before tearing through stalls and shoppers in the market on Breitscheidplatz Square, outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the German capital’s main shopping area.
The man at the wheel – who according to German newspaper Die Welt was of Afghan or Pakistani heritage and had arrived in Germany in February – fled the scene before being arrested at a nearby zoo.
Mike Fox, a tourist from Birmingham, said the large truck missed him by about three meters as it drove into the market, tearing through tables and wooden stands. ‘It was definitely deliberate,’ he said. …
Emma Rushton from Rugby in Warwickshire, saw the lorry rush past her at speed and said it could not have been an accident. …
Australian Trisha O’Neill told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she was only metres from where the truck smashed into the crowded market. ‘I just saw this huge black truck speeding through the markets crushing so many people and then all the lights went out and everything was destroyed. I could hear screaming and then we all froze. Then suddenly people started to move and lift all the wreckage off people, trying to help whoever was there.’
O’Neill said there was ‘blood and bodies everywhere’.
Like the Islamic truck attack in Nice in July that killed over 80 people and wounded over 200.
UPDATE: Trump blames ‘Islamist terrorists’ for ‘slaughter’ of Christians in Berlin, by AFP. Trump calls it correctly by name, without hesitation. What a pleasant improvement over the PC types like Obama, who refuse to use accurate language when it does not it them politically.
UPDATE: Driver a ‘refugee’: reports.
Daily newspaper Die Welt and news agency DPA reported that the driver came to Germany as a refugee in February and was either from Afghanistan or Pakistan. The man had used different names, which was making his identification more difficult, a security source added.
