On Tuesday, police in Berlin said they now assume an 18-wheeler truck that crashed into a Christmas market near the Berlin Zoo on Monday, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 50, "was deliberately steered into the crowd" and that "all police measures related to the suspected terrorist attack at Breitscheidplatz are progressing at full steam and with the necessary diligence." Police say they have arrested and are interrogating a suspect, believed to be the driver, and German media report that the man is an asylum-seeker from Pakistan or Afghanistan who entered Germany either last New Year's Eve or in February. A second man in the truck who has since died is Polish, police say, and believed to be the cousin of the truck's Polish owner, possibly hijacked by the assailant.
The market is located in central Berlin's main shopping district, outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a symbol of peace that was damaged in World War II bombing. German officials had initially refrained from labeling the crash a terrorist attack, but eyewitnesses said from the beginning that the steel-laden truck's rampage through stalls and people at the Christmas market appeared intentional. You can hear some of their accounts in the CNN roundup below. Peter Weber
The Week
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