Pictures of the suspect Anis Amri. AFP.
A massive manhunt is underway for Anis Amri, the main suspect in the Berlin terror attack that killed 12 people on Monday. USA Today. Amri is a Tunisian asylum seeker and documents found in the wrecked truck used as a weapon linked him to the attack. Amri was under surveillance from the German government and had links to ISIS related groups. The Germans suspected that Amri was going to buy a weapon for an attack, but the surveillance was dropped in September of this year. Amri's plea for asylum was denied and he was supposed to have been deported this year. A previous suspect, a 23 year old from Pakistan, was released due to insufficient evidence. Amri is considered armed and dangerous and the manhunt for him has extended throughout Europe.
My Comment:
More information is coming out about the Berlin attack and what I have read has been shocking. Before I move on though I want to mention the fate of the driver of the truck, a man from Poland who had a young child at home. Apparently he was carjacked and tried to fight with the suspect before he was shot and killed by him. Though he was unable to prevent this terror attack, I have to recognize bravery whenever I see it and that Polish truck driver was certainly brave. I know a lot of truck drivers, and it's a dangerous job as it is. I can't imagine having your rig stolen and used as a weapon in a terror attack.
That being said, this entire attack seems like a colossal mess up by the German government. First of all, how on earth did Amri, if he was the attacker, get away from the scene of the crime? His vehicle was wrecked and there should have been police and security there to round him up right away. The fact that he was able to get away tells me one of two things. Either he had help and someone with a vehicle picked him up right away or the German police just completely screwed up.
Even worse, Amri was not even supposed to be in Germany. His application for asylum was rejected and he was due to be deported. My question is if wasn't supposed to be in Germany, why hadn't he been kicked out. He was a bad enough person that he was under surveillance and he had links to ISIS. You would have thought that he would have been fast tracked and deported quickly right? But that didn't happen.
Well according to the Daily Mail, he wasn't deported due to a clerical error. I don't know how accurate that is because it's the Daily Mail, but they are saying that he had been arrested three times in Germany and had served time in Italy. The article also made it clear that he had been planning an attack but the German government wasn't able to prove it.
It just boggles my mind that such a person would be allowed in Germany in the first place. He is a career criminal and has obvious links to terrorism. Why then was he allowed to stay in the country when his asylum claim was denied? Why didn't they serve his deportation papers?
My guess is that the German immigration service is so overwhelmed by the massive migrant wave that they are simply too busy to follow up on anything. A lot of bad people For that I blame Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel. She opened the floodgates to the massive waves of immigrants that have inundated Europe. The only people that have more blame for this attack, other then Amri and whoever helped him, is Merkel and the people responsible for the wars in Libya and Syria that started this whole mess.
Amri's alleged criminal links are not surprising either. European terrorists often have links to crime. Not only do they sell drugs and rob people to fund their attacks, they also use their underground links to buy fully automatic firearms. Because of this pattern, I don't think that Amri was actually a lone wolf attacker. Like I said before, the fact that he escaped makes me think that he probably had help. I just can't believe that he could escape that quickly if he didn't have someone working with him
The question is what happens next. With Amri on the run he is going to be desperate and dangerous. And it is very possible that he could try another attack using the same method. Though security is probably going to be raised in Berlin, he could attack elsewhere and his method of attack is pretty foolproof. All he needs to do is overpower or murder another truck driver and then find a crowd of people. And if he has help perhaps he will find a different way to attack as well.
It makes me wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea for European truck drivers to be armed. Though the legal problems of giving truck drivers guns is obvious and probably impossible to overcome, but I don't know of any other way to prevent these kinds of attacks. The only thing standing between terrorists and a whole pile of dead bodies crushed under a truck is the driver and right now these people are limited to hand to hand combat and harsh language...
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