Angela Merkel has told German citizens that the biggest challenge the country is facing is from Islamist terrorism.

In her New Year message she tells Germans that their country is stronger than terrorism and the government will do everything to ensure 'security in freedom'.

In her annual televised message, which is being broadcast today, chancellor Mrs Merkel says 2016 has been 'a year of severe tests', the toughest of them Islamic extremist terror.

But she adds, however, that she is 'confident for Germany'.

Twelve people were killed in a lorry attack on a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19.

In her New Year message, Angela Merkel has told German citizens that the biggest challenge the country is facing is from Islamist terrorism

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for that rampage, as it did for two attacks in Bavaria in the summer in which the assailants, who, like the chief suspect in Berlin, came to Germany as asylum-seekers.

In the Bavaria attacks the two assailants were killed, while 20 people were injured.

'It is particularly bitter and sickening when terror attacks are committed by people who claim to seek protection in our country,' Mrs Merkel, who has faced criticism for allowing large numbers of migrants into Germany in 2015, says in her address.

In her annual televised message, which is being broadcast today, chancellor Mrs Merkel says 2016 has been 'a year of severe tests', and referred to terror attacks, including the Berlin Christmas Market attack, pictured

But 'in going about our life and our work, we are telling the terrorists: you are murderers full of hatred but you will not determine how we live and want to live'.

'We are free, considerate and open,' she adds.

More than a million asylum-seekers entered the country in 2015, while a further 300,000 were projected to have arrived over the past year.

In her New Year message Mrs Merkel says that in the face of pictures of the devastated Syrian city of Aleppo, 'how important and right it was for our country to help those who really need our protection find their feet here and integrate'.

German police and rescue workers at the scene where a truck crashed into a Christmas market, close to the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church in Berlin on December 19

Her country's democracy and values are the opposite of 'the hate-filled world of terrorism, and they will be stronger than terrorism', she adds.

'We are stronger together. Our state is stronger. Our state is doing everything to guarantee its citizens security in freedom,' she continues.

Mrs Merkel also took the opportunity to pledge that in 2017 the government will take action quickly 'where political or legal changes are necessary'.

Flowers and candles are placed at the Christmas market at Breitscheid square in Berlin in the wake of the deadly terror attack, carried out by Islamic State

Mrs Merkel is seeking a fourth term as chancellor in an election expected in September, and has already said that she expects her toughest campaign yet.

She is facing a stiff challenge from Germany's surging far-right party, which is rapidly gaining ground, in the face of Mrs Merkel's unpopular open door immigration policy.

In her address she calls for 'an open view of the world and self-confidence, in ourselves and our country' and attacks 'distorted pictures' of the European Union and parliamentary democracy.

She acknowledges that Europe is slow and difficult and says it should concentrate on 'what it really can do better than the national state'.