2016 Berlin attack

2016 Berlin attack
Part of terrorism in Germany and terrorism in Europe since 2014
Aftermath of the attack
Breitscheidplatz 2016 Berlin attack (Berlin) Show map of Berlin 2016 Berlin attack (Germany) Show map of Germany
Location	Breitscheidplatz, Berlin, Germany
Coordinates	52°30′17.59″N 13°20′7.84″E / 52.5048861°N 13.3355111°E / 52.5048861; 13.3355111Coordinates: 52°30′17.59″N 13°20′7.84″E / 52.5048861°N 13.3355111°E / 52.5048861; 13.3355111
Date	19 December 2016 20:02 CET (UTC+01)
Attack type	Vehicular assault, truck hijacking, stabbing, shooting, mass murder
Weapons	Scania R 450 semi-trailer truck, Erma pistol, knife
Deaths	12 (11 pedestrians, original truck driver)
Non-fatal injuries	65
Perpetrator	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Assailant	Anis Amri (later shot dead by Italian police in Sesto San Giovanni)

Anis Amri
Wanted poster offering a reward for Amri
Born	(1992-12-22)22 December 1992 Tataouine, Tunisia
Died	23 December 2016(2016-12-23) (aged 24) Sesto San Giovanni, Italy
Cause of death	Shot by police
Nationality	Tunisian
Allegiance	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

A terrorist attack on 19 December 2016, during which a truck was driven into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, left 12 people dead and 56 others injured. One of the victims was the truck's original driver, Łukasz Urban, who was found shot dead in the passenger seat. The perpetrator was Anis Amri, a Tunisian failed asylum seeker. Four days after the attack he was killed in a shootout with police near Milan in Italy. An initial suspect was arrested and later released due to lack of evidence.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS/IS) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the attacker answered its calls to target the citizens of states that are fighting against it. ISIL released a video of Amri pledging allegiance to the terror group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The attack took place during a time of heightened Islamist terrorist activity in Europe. Several terrorist attacks in 2016, in Germany and in neighboring countries, have been linked to ISIS; some of them were similar to the truck attack on the Christmas market in Berlin (e.g. the 2014 Nantes attack and the 2016 Nice attack).

In March, 32 people were killed by three coordinated suicide bombings in the Belgian capital Brussels. On 14 July a Tunisian man deliberately drove a truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice, killing 86 people. Four days later, an Afghan asylum seeker stabbed five people on a train near Würzburg, Germany. On 24 July, a Syrian refugee blew himself up outside a music festival in the German city of Ansbach, wounding fifteen people. Two days later Islamists attacked Christians attending a church service in Normandy, killing an elderly priest. On 26 November a 12-year-old Iraqi-German boy planted a nail bomb at a Christmas market in Ludwigshafen, but it failed to detonate.