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German authorities offer €100k reward to find chief suspect in Berlin attack

Police have warned that 24-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri could be “violent and armed”.

Updated 5.35pm

GERMAN POLICE HAVE launched a manhunt for a Tunisian man suspected of driving the truck that ploughed through a Berlin Christmas market in a deadly assault claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

The man has been named as 24-year-old Anis Amri.

The federal prosecutors office have offered a reward of €100,000 for information leading to the arrest of Amri, who they warned “could be violent and armed”.

Media reports said asylum office papers believed to belong to the man were found in the cab of the 40-tonne lorry used in the attack that killed 12 people on Monday.

Amri was born in the southern city of Tataouine, the reports said.

He applied for asylum in Germany in April and received a temporary residence permit, according to the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

A previous suspect — a 23-year-old Pakistani asylum seeker — was released late yesterday for lack of evidence, prompting fears of a killer on the loose and further rattling nerves in a shocked country.

Twelve people were killed when the Polish-registered articulated truck, laden with steel beams, slammed into the crowded holiday market late on Monday, smashing wooden stalls and crushing victims.

Twenty four people remain in hospital, 14 of whom were seriously injured, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said.

Nightmare

The scenes instantly revived nightmarish memories of the 14 July truck assault in the French Riviera city of Nice, where 86 people were killed by a Tunisian Islamist.

The IS-linked Amaq news agency said “a soldier of the Islamic State” carried out the Berlin carnage “in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition countries”.

There was no evidence to back the claim, nor was the perpetrator identified.

Germany is part of a US-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria.

De Maiziere said several lines of inquiry were being pursued, but “we should let the security services do their job”.

“No-one will rest until the perpetrator or perpetrators have been caught,” he told ARD public television.

Germany Christmas Market A German police officer stands next to a merry-go-round in the Christmas market in Frankfurt yesterday Michael Probst Michael Probst

The attack comes at a sensitive time for Chancellor Angela Merkel who is running for a fourth term in 2017 but has faced strong criticism over her decision last year to open the country’s borders to refugees.

‘Dangerous criminal’

In a blow to investigators, federal prosecutors announced they had to release the only suspect in custody after finding no forensic evidence to link him to Germany’s deadliest attack in recent years.

The Pakistani man was arrested late on Monday evening after he was reportedly seen jumping out of the truck and fleeing the scene.

But officials had expressed growing doubts over whether they had the right suspect in custody.

“We may have a dangerous criminal in the area,” Berlin’s police chief Klaus Kandt said, adding that security would be boosted while urging “heightened vigilance”.

Following the suspect’s release, Kandt told ARD television “one or more” perpetrators were believed to be on the run and possibly armed.

Images from the aftermath showed the mangled truck with its windscreen smashed, a trail of destruction in its wake, while survivors recounted harrowing stories of near misses and bloody carnage.

Germany in mourning

A Polish man, killed with a gunshot, was found on the truck’s passenger seat, said de Maiziere. He was believed to be the initial driver of the Polish-registered vehicle.

Merkel visited the scene of the carnage for a minute’s silence yesterday and then joined a memorial service in the adjacent Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Mourners placed flowers and candles at the site while German flags flew at half-mast.

Germany Christmas Market Berlin's Brandenburg Gate is illuminated in the German colours last night Markus Schreiber Markus Schreiber

Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate was lit in the national colours in honour of the victims, and foreign leaders, led by US President Barack Obama, sent their condolences.

Europe has been on high alert for most of 2016, with bloody jihadist attacks striking Paris and Brussels.

In July, 15 people were injured in two attacks in the southern German state of Bavaria committed by asylum seekers and claimed by the Islamic State group.

The arrival of 890,000 refugees last year has polarised Germany, with critics calling the influx a serious security threat.

Opponents were quick to seize on the rampage as proof that Merkel’s liberal asylum policy had endangered the country.

Marcus Pretzell of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party labelled the Christmas market victims “Merkel’s dead”.

© – AFP, 2016

Read: 31 dead and over 70 injured after huge explosion at fireworks market

Read: Challenges and unexpected questions: On the door at Apollo House

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    Sep 28th 2017, 10:54 AM

    Aren’t we lucky our country doesn’t have issues like this or others.

    179
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    Mute Shawn O'Ceallaghan
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    Sep 28th 2017, 12:27 PM

    Helps not building on an island with a Volcano.

    To be fair though, we did settle beside arguably the biggest and strongest colonial power in the world. So we all make mistakes.

    65
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    Mute Brown Boots
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    Sep 28th 2017, 12:41 PM

    I dunno, I guess you’ve not seen Mrs Boots erupting at the slightest thing!

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    Mute Harry Whitehead
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    Sep 28th 2017, 5:34 PM

    @Shawn O’Ceallaghan: People settle near volcanoes for the same reason they settle near rivers and shorelines – it’s a tradeoff between convenience and the occasional disaster. In the case of volcanoes, the convenience is agricultural – volcanic soil is known for being rich and fertile.

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    Mute dangermouse
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    Sep 28th 2017, 10:46 AM

    Isn’t prince Philips a god to these people maybe he can peg the top with the duchess of York

    35
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    Mute TravellingTheWorld
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    Sep 28th 2017, 11:11 AM

    Surprised AFP haven’t blamed ‘Global warming’

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Sep 28th 2017, 11:28 AM

    @TravellingTheWorld: Well they once tried to incorporate plate tectonics into ‘climate change’ , looking on 9 years later at the propaganda that Goebbels would have be delighted with , it is time to normalize climate as a research topic -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGGgncVq-4

    The big idea is comparing evolutionary geology between our planet and our sister planet Venus which are roughly the same size but with very different dynamics. The current batch of geologists don’t have the expansive view to investigate these comparisons much the same as climate guys can’t manage to look at planetary climate within context of all planets in the solar system.

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    Mute Michael Geraghty
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    Sep 28th 2017, 1:05 PM

    @Gerald Kelleher: venus is 42 million miles closer to the sun so pointless comparing the two

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Sep 28th 2017, 2:43 PM

    @Michael Geraghty: It is not entirely your fault that you can’t adapt to more challenging reasoning but the distance of Venus and the Earth from the nothing has nothing whatsoever to do with evolutionary geology on either planet.

    The Earth has a 26 mile spherical deviation between Equatorial and Polar diameters, in other words it is not a perfect sphere while Venus is. The Earth has both plate tectonic and volcanic activity while Venus has only volcanic activity. When I showed about a decade ago that it is impossible to exempt the Earth’s fluid interior beneath the thin fractured crust from differential rotation across latitudes, the community threw the kitchen sink at rotation and made a balls of it. I trust readers here to see to see how the planet’s rotation connects the planet’s Equatorial bulge (misnomer) with the motion and evolution of the surface crust (plate tectonics).

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    Mute Tomás Havana Kavanagh
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    Sep 28th 2017, 11:54 PM

    @Gerald Kelleher: so are ye saying earth is wobbling about the sun like a water balloon?

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    Mute Noel Allan
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    Sep 28th 2017, 11:36 AM

    Is it just me that noticed on the aircraft wingtip a new website address with an added w?
    when did wwww. become the norm…..lol?

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    Mute Brown Boots
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    Sep 28th 2017, 12:43 PM

    @Noel Allan: and they wonder why their branding ain’t working!

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    Mute Pa Curran
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    Sep 28th 2017, 7:13 PM

    Maybe they’ll pack in the prank calls now.

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    Mute Nicholas O'Halloran
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    Sep 28th 2017, 11:12 AM

    They should watch Von ryan’s express, plenty of tips

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    Mute Brown Boots
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    Sep 28th 2017, 11:16 AM

    @Nicholas O’Halloran: what sinatra running at the end, beaten only by the scene from Heat as the greatest movie running scene ever!!! What actors they all were!

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    Mute Mark Dervan
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    Sep 28th 2017, 1:54 PM

    That’s freaky! I had a missed call this morning from a strange number and when I looked up the country code it was Vanuatu which I’ve never heard of ever!

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    Mute Brian Murphy
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    Sep 28th 2017, 2:51 PM

    @Mark Dervan: So did I!

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    Mute Robc
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    Sep 28th 2017, 10:23 PM

    @Mark Dervan: so did I. I googled it and found out its a phone scam

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    Mute Jonathan Power
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    Sep 28th 2017, 2:16 PM

    I wonder could we do the same for Ireland ‘entire population evacuated prior to Leo’s budget’

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