2016 Berlin attack
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On December 19, 2016, a truck was driven into a crowded Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring many others. The attack highlighted vulnerabilities at public gatherings in Europe and raised concerns about security at similar events across the continent.
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On 19 December 2016, a truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, leaving 12 people dead and 56 others injured. One of the victims was the truck's original driver, Łukasz Urban, who was shot dead hours before the attack. The truck was eventually stopped by its automatic brakes. The perpetrator was 24-year-old Anis Amri, an unsuccessful asylum seeker from Tunisia. 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. Nearly five years after the attack, a man who was critically injured during the attack died from complications related to his wounds, becoming the 13th victim. The attack is the deadliest act of terror in Germany since the 1980 Oktoberfest bombing in Munich, which killed 13 people and injured 211 others, and as of December 2023, it remains the worst Islamist terrorist attack by number of casualties in German history.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attack and released a video of the perpetrator, Anis Amri, pledging allegiance to the terror group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.