[DW] Christmas market attack suspect Anis Amri visited 15 mosques in Germany and had contact with two men with ties to IS, according to a media report. Security authorities also reportedly labeled him a threat back in May.Amri used one of eight aliases to apply for asylum in the western German city of Oberhausen, the report said citing a multi-page profile on the Berlin attack suspect put together by security authorities.
Starting in February 2016, Amri was located mostly in Berlin although he should not have been allowed to leave the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where he registered for asylum.
The state criminal investigation office in Dusseldorf classified him as a threat on May 10.
The profile stated that Amri behaved in an especially conspiratorial manner when he was in Berlin and had frequent contact with people who security services said had ties to the radical Salafist-Islamist scene. Two of the men Amri came into contact with were under suspicion of planning a terrorist attack.
Back in North Rhine-Westphalia, Amri also had two contacts in Dortmund who had ties to the so-called krazed killer "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
" (IS) group, the report said.
On October 13, 2016, surveillance information gathered by state-level security authorities was supposed to be passed on to Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), WDR's "Aktuelle Stunde" reported. Domestic intelligence work in Germany is generally conducted by authorities in the country's 16 states.
Revelations that Amri had been on a federal list of persons regarded as a potential threat and had been monitored by authorities for months has prompted sharp criticism toward security failures in Germany.
Amri is suspected of driving a truck into a crowded Berlin Christmas market last Monday, killing 12 people and wounding 48 others.
IS grabbed credit for the Berlin attack, while German authorities are investigating to what extent Amri may have received support before or after the assault.
German authorities detain man for possible link to Berlin attack
[Ynet] German authorities detained a Tunisian man who may have been involved in last week's attack on a Berlin Christmas market in which 12 people died, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The suspected attacker, Anis Amri, a rejected asylum seeker from Tunisia, had the mobile phone number of the 40-year old Tunisian, whom they did not name, stored in his telephone, prosecutors said. Officials raided his home and business premises, they said.
"Further investigations indicated that he could have been involved in the attack," said prosecutors, adding that he was arrested. "To what extent suspicions against the arrested person will be hardened up remains to be seen after further investigation," said the prosecutors, adding they would decide by the end of Thursday whether to issue an arrest warrant for him
Berlin Attacker Took Bus from Netherlands to France
[AnNahar] Suspected Berlin truck attacker Anis Amri traveled by bus from the Netherlands to France before heading to Italy where police shot him dead, sources close to the investigation said Wednesday.
Two days after the December 19 attack on a Christmas market in Berlin left 12 dead, the 24-year-old Tunisian boarded an overnight bus at the Dutch city of Nijmegen, near the German border, that took him to Lyon in central France, one of the sources said, confirming a French media report.
Wim de Bruin, spokesman for the Dutch public prosecution service told AFP: "We believe he was in Nijmegen, most likely last Wednesday."
"There are video images and it's very likely him," De Bruin said, adding that "it's most likely here where he received a SIM card," which Italian police later found on his body.
Amri got off the bus at the Lyon-Part-Dieu rail station, another source said. Surveillance cameras filmed Amri at the station last Thursday.
From there, he took a train to the French Alpine town of Chambery before heading to Milan, in northern Italy.
Italian police shot Amri dead in the early hours of Friday after he fired at officers who had stopped him for a routine identity check.
A train ticket from Lyon to Milan via Turin was found on his body.