Responsibility for Christmas market killings not yet confirmed but use of heavy vehicle on traditional event follows Isis line

The Berlin killings appear to have been modelled on the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, a tactic that has become a focus of propaganda by Islamic State over the past month.

At least 12 people died and dozens were injured on Monday night when a lorry was driven into a Christmas market in the centre of the German capital. The chancellor, Angela Merkel, said on Tuesday it had to be assumed “we are dealing with a terrorist attack”.

Berlin police say man in custody over market attack might not be truck driver – live Read more

In terms of both its chosen target and method, the Berlin attack has echoes of the slaughter brought to the French coastal city in July by a Tunisian-born French resident.

In that attack, 86 people were killed and hundreds injured when Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a 19-tonne lorry down the city’s Promenade des Anglais into a crowd that had gathered for a firework display.

On 21 November, the US state department advised tourists in Europe to “exercise caution at holiday festivals, events, and outdoor markets” for fear terrorists would use “both conventional and non-conventional weapons” to wreak havoc over the Christmas period.

“Credible information indicates the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil or Da’esh), al-Qaida, and their affiliates continue to plan terrorist attacks in Europe, with a focus on the upcoming holiday season and associated events,” the alert said. “US citizens should also be alert to the possibility that extremist sympathisers or self-radicalised extremists may conduct attacks during this period with little or no warning.”

The US authorities are well aware, however, that vehicle attacks pose just as serious a threat in the US as in Europe.

A week after the travel alert was issued, a Somali-born student at Ohio State University rammed a car into a crowd of people and then attacked them with a butcher’s knife, injuring 11 before he was shot dead. The attacker, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, had earlier railed on social media against the treatment of Muslims around the world, and Isis claimed he had been acting as a “soldier” on its behalf, but it is unclear how much he had drawn on Isis material as inspiration.

“This tactic goes back to al-Qaida talking about it. And Isis first picked it up in 2014,” said Peter Bergen, director for international security at the New America thinktank. “The barriers to entry are almost zero. The only thing you have to know how to do is drive. Now we are looking to the inauguration with a huge number of people in Washington and US officials are aware of it as a threat.”

In recent weeks there have been increasing signs that Isis, as it loses ground in Iraq and comes under increased military pressure in Syria, is putting ever greater emphasis on striking back by inviting aspiring jihadis in the west to carry out attacks with heavy vehicles.



The November edition of the Isis magazine, Rumiyah (Rome), used Nice as an example of the kind of attacks jihadis could carry out “behind enemy lines”.



“Though being an essential part of modern life, very few actually comprehend the deadly and destructive capability of the motor vehicle and its capacity of reaping large numbers of casualties if used in a premeditated manner,” a Rumiyah commentary said.

“They feel the pressure,” said Hassan Hassan, co-author of a book on the group, Isis: Inside the Army of Terror. “They want to make themselves look like they are still there and that they are overshadowing al-Qaida. They are also responding to widespread criticism that they are only bringing devastation to Sunni towns.”

On 25 November, French authorities announced the arrest of five people believed to be plotting attacks on a Christmas market on the Champs-Élysées in Paris and at Disneyland Paris.

The alleged plot in that case was said to involve weapons that had been hidden for use by the attackers. Isis’s new approach appears to reflect an awareness that the use of firearms can make a planned attack vulnerable to being thwarted by western intelligence. The use of trucks is an attempt to avoid that vulnerability.

The Berlin incident comes after Isis claimed responsibility for two attacks in Germany this year. A 27-year-old Syrian blew himself up in Ansbach in July, killing himself and wounding others. In the same month, a man wielding an axe carried out an attack on a train in Würzburg, injuring four.