US cities bolster security following Berlin attack

“We must know, who remains in our country”, Pazderski said on Tuesday. “According to what we know, we have to assume this was a terrorist attack”, Merkel, visibly moved and dressed in black, told reporters. Prosecutors also said no forensic evidence had been found proving that he was in the cab during the rampage, and no witnesses had followed him from the scene of the carnage to where he had been picked up.

“I don’t want to use the word “attack” yet at the moment, although there is a strong case for it”, German minister of interior, Thomas de Maiziere, said on German radio ARD. In July authorities failed to stop two men, in contact with Islamic State militant group (ISIS) operatives, carrying out attacks in the southern state of Bavaria.

The latest attack has bolstered Alternative for Germany, a political party on the right that is intensely critical of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s near open borders policy when it comes to refugees.

Holiday lights were stuck in a broken wind shield of a truck that crashed into a Christmas market.

Berlin’s police chief Klaus Kandt said it was not certain that the correct suspect had been detained. A week later, a 27-year-old Syrian asylum seeker blew himself up outside a music venue in the Bavarian town of Ansbach, injuring more than a dozen people.

The man is now being detained by police, but denies any involvement in the attack.

The city’s mayor called on Berlin to hold on to its multicultural togetherness: “We will not let cosmopolitan Berlin be taken by such a cowardly attack, by fear and terror”, Mueller said.

Berlin Police announced on Twitter that they had arrested one suspect in the area, but said “whether it’s the driver of the truck is now under investigation”. The Polish driver, who is believed to have been responsible for the attack, was unreachable since 4 pm local time, according to the BBC.

The man found dead in the passenger seat, a Polish national, had suffered gunshot wounds and was most likely dead before the crash occurred.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the suspect is from Pakistan and entered Germany on December 31, arriving in Berlin in February.

“They must have done something to my driver”, Ariel Zurawski, the owner of the truck, told Polish television station TVN24.

Following Monday’s incident, French President François Holland offered his solidarity to the German people.