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The HGV crushed dozens of Christmas shoppers as it ploughed into the busy market in Breitscheidplatz, in west Berlin, at speeds of up to 40mph just after 8pm on Monday.

Police have confirmed they are now treating it as a terror attack amid unconfirmed reports that ISIS have claimed responsibility.

A suspect was arrested around 2km away after fleeing the scene of devastation.

Pakistani asylum seeker Naved B, 23, has been named locally as the man arrested.

But security sources quoted in Die Welt newspaper now say they do not believe Naved B is the attacker.

And he was later released by cops due to insufficient evidence.

(Image: REUTERS)

They add that the attacker is still on the run, armed and with the scope to cause further damage.

The arrested man earlier denied any involvement to police, after police said the Pakistani was seeking asylum in Germany after arriving earlier in the year.

“The police have no idea who they’re looking for,” Michael Behrendt, police reporter with Die Welt said.

He added that police "have no weapon, no DNA traces," and they are "looking for a needle in a haystack”.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she'd be sickened if rumours the suspect was a refugee were true, as Germany said it was at war with terror.

(Image: REUTERS)

The lorry was reportedly stolen from a building site in Berlin on Monday, according to police.

It was registered in Poland and the haulage company said the person meant to be driving it – a 37-year-old Pole – is "missing".

A Polish man was found dead from a gunshot in the lorry, a German foreign minister confirmed.

Police are looking into claims the vehicle, which was loaded with 25 tons of steel from Italy, may have been hijacked.

GPS data shows the truck was moved several times during the day – as if someone was learning to drive it.

(Image: AFP/GETTY) (Image: DS)

Terrified witnesses said victims were lying wounded on the ground alongside pools of blood.

Pictures from the scene showed Christmas decorations sticking out of the smashed windscreen of the black truck.

Emma Rushton, a tourist from Rugby, Warks., said: "We heard a really loud bang and then we saw the articulated vehicle plough into the market and all the people.

"It was very difficult.

"It may have been very different had we not left when we did."

(Image: REUTERS)

The panicked Brit added: "There was lots of screaming and lots of people panicking.

"It wasn't an accident.

"There was no way that it could have come off the road. It was not slowing down."

But Berliners are being told to stay at home in case of any follow-up incidents.

German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere previously said: "I don't want to use the word 'attack' yet although a lot points to that."

(Image: TWITTER)

The haulage company which owns the lorry said it had not had contact with the driver – who was meant to be taking a rest stop in Berlin – since midday on Monday.

Owner Ariel Zurawski refused to believe the person who drove the truck into the market worked for him.

He said: "It wasn't my driver.

"I vouch for him, he's my cousin."

German commandos have stormed into a Berlin airport linked to the Christmas market attack.

Media reports said the man who drove the truck was living there in a refugee centre.

The horror is similiar to an attack in France in July, in which a Tunisian-born man drove a 19-tonne truck along the beach front, mowing down people who had gathered to watch the fireworks on Bastille Day.

He killed 86 people.

The truck veered into the market at what would have been one of the most crowded times – when adults and children would be gathering in the traditional cluster of wooden huts that sell food and Christmas goods in an annual celebration replicated across Germany and much of Central Europe.

Revellers were reported tucking into sausages and mulled wine when the horror unfolded.

Germany has not in recent years suffered a large-scale attack from Islamist militants like those seen in neighbouring Belgium and France.

But it was shaken by two smaller attacks in Bavaria over the summer – one on a train near Wuerzburg and another at a music festival in Ansbach that wounded 20 people. Both were claimed by ISIS.

And government officials have said the country, which welcomed nearly 900,000 migrants last year, many from the war-torn Middle East, lies in the "crosshairs of terrorism".