German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the attack at the Berlin Christmas market on Tuesday was indeed a “terrorist attack”. At least 12 people were killed and 50 injured after a man drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin on Tuesday. The German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said the man arrested on the suspicion of involvement in the attack was a 23-year-old Pakistani national who had applied for asylum.
Merkel said she was “horrified, shaken and deeply sad”. “We must assume at the current time that it was a terrorist attack...I know that it would be particularly difficult for all of us to bear if it is confirmed that this deed was carried out by a person who sought protection and asylum in Germany,” she was quoted as saying by The New York Times.
The police had later said they might have arrested the wrong man and it is uncertain if the Pakistani national was really the driver. A Polish freight company owned the truck and its owner was found dead in the vehicle, Reuters reported.
United States President-elect Donald Trump said Islamic terrorists were responsible for the attack, without mentioning any evidence. He said terrorists must be “eradicated from the face of the earth” and vowed to fulfil that goal with all “freedom-loving partners”, AP reported.
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