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.

[5] 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.

[9] The truck was on its return leg to Poland, having started its trip in Turin, Italy,[10] and was transporting steel beams to a Berlin warehouse[11] owned by ThyssenKrupp.

[12] The head of the delivery company, Ariel Żurawski, reported that his cousin Łukasz Robert Urban[12][15] had been driving the truck to Berlin, but that he could not imagine him being responsible for the attack.

[20] On 19 December 2016, at 20:10 local time,[21] the perpetrator drove the stolen truck through a Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz in the City West of Berlin, killing 11 people and injuring 56.

[24][25] The truck came from the direction of Hardenbergstraße, drove about 50 metres (160 ft) through the market, and destroyed several stalls[26] before turning back onto Budapester Straße and coming to a stop level with the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

[28] Łukasz Urban was found dead in the passenger seat of the truck cab; he had been stabbed and shot[17][29] once in the head[30] with a small-caliber firearm.

[32] However, later media reports indicated that the truck was brought to a stop by its automatic braking system[33] and Urban was stabbed and shot hours before the attack.

[63] The U.S. Department of State had previously warned of terrorist attacks on Christmas markets in Europe after ISIL took control of Raqqa and Mosul.

Police sources later suggested that they might have arrested "the wrong man" because the individual in custody did not carry gunshot residue or any marks that would indicate that he had been in a fight.

According to him, after leaving a friend's house and crossing a road in central Berlin on the evening of the attack, a car started following him, after which he walked faster.

Officials called for a public manhunt, issuing a recent picture, and offering a reward of €100,000, warning that Amri might be armed and dangerous.

[87] Amri fled from Tunisia to escape imprisonment for stealing a truck[88] and arrived for the first time in Europe in 2011 on a refugee raft[89] at the island of Lampedusa.

[99][103] A few minutes after the attack, a surveillance camera spotted him at Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station which is close to the Christmas market.

[105] On 23 December at around 03:00 CET, Amri was killed in a shootout with police in front of the railway station in Sesto San Giovanni near Milan.

[115][116] Italian police confirmed on 4 January that the gun used in the attack, a .22-caliber Erma Model EP552S pistol (Walther PPK clone),[116] matched the one found on Amri.

[117] ZDF reported on 6 January that he might have acquired the gun in Switzerland and lived there for a prolonged period of time whose length investigators were trying to determine.

Tunisian Interior Ministry stated that he had also told him that he was the emir or leader of a German jihadist group called "Abu al-Walaa brigade".

[128] On 17 May 2017 the Interior Ministry of Berlin stated that already in November 2016 intelligence was given that Anis Amri was involved in criminal offenses concerning drug trafficking.

An investigation was launched to find out to what extent this information was withheld by the State Criminal Police Office of Berlin after the attack happened.

[133] National and international right-wing politicians and commentators blamed the attack partly on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her policy of accepting an unlimited number of asylum seekers and migrants.

[134][135][136][137][138][139][140] Euroskeptic politicians also condemned the lack of border checks under the Schengen system for allowing the perpetrator to travel freely through several countries after the attack.

[142][143][144][145][146][147][148] The editorial board of The New York Times wrote that it was "dangerous" to blame German refugee policy without waiting for facts about the identity of the attacker to emerge.

[150] A donation page to support his family was set up on GoFundMe and collected more than €110,000 by 23 December by British truck driver Dave Duncan.

[151] He was officially thanked by Polish Ambassador to the United Kingdom Arkady Rzegocki at a ceremony at Embassy of Poland, London on 9 January 2017.

[154][155][156] The funeral of Urban was held on 30 December at the Polish village of Banie and was attended by hundreds of people including President of Poland Andrzej Duda.

[158][159] President of Tunisia Beji Caid Essebsi meanwhile stated that Europe "must be calm", vowing to take responsibility for the attacks, but insisted that it was necessary to verify citizenship before accepting deportations.

In March 2017, the German Muslim community organisation Deutschsprachige Islamkreis Hildesheim was also banned after investigators found that its members were preparing to travel to the conflict zone in Syria to fight for the Islamic State.

According to the Federal Agency for Civic Education, these examples show that Salafist mosques not only concern themselves with religious matters, but also prepare serious crimes and terrorist activities.

[164][165] On the fourth anniversary in December 2020, a ceremony, which was attended by survivors and relatives of the victims, was held at the Breitscheidplatz to commemorate those killed in the attack.