(New York, NY) – The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) today released updated resources on extremism and counter-extremism in Germany following the death of the prime suspect in a December 19 truck attack on an outdoor Berlin Christmas market in a shootout with Italian police in Milan.
The attacker—believed to be Tunisian-born Anis Amri—plowed a truck into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others. The attack took place at in Breitscheidplatz, a major public square in western Berlin, near the landmark Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency, calling the driver a “soldier” of the Islamic State and has since released a video purportedly showing Amri pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Amri was a former asylum-seeker whom German authorities had reportedly tried to deport earlier this summer. Amri arrived in Italy from Tunisia 2011, and began living in Germany in December 2015. The attack came amidst heightened tensions in the EU following ISIS’s online campaign designed to inspire followers to carry out attacks in their home countries.
To view the CEP report, Germany: Extremism and Counter-Extremism, please click here.
To speak with international experts on extremism, please contact CEP at [email protected].