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Berlin attack: Isis magazine offered tips on carrying out Nice-style lorry assault

Rumiyah offered tips and tricks to maximise the number of casualties

Caroline Mortimer
Wednesday 21 December 2016 23:32 GMT
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Isis said would-be terrorists should 'check the lorry has enough petrol' before attacking
Isis said would-be terrorists should 'check the lorry has enough petrol' before attacking (AFP/Getty)

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An Isis propaganda magazine calling on followers to carry out a lorry attack like the one in Nice was released one month before this week's incident in Berlin.

Rumiyah, an English-language publication, gloated over the Nice attack in which French-Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove into Bastile Day crowds killing 84 people in July.

It said the attack was a “superb demonstration” of the deadly force of a lorry attack.

The magazine featured instructions such as targeting low-security public events such as “outdoor markets, festivals, parades and political rallies”.

Isis illustrated the article with pictures of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York with one photo bearing the caption “excellent target”.

On Monday an attacker drove a lorry at a Christmas market in Berlin which killed at least 12 people and injured 84 others.

German police are hunting for Tunisian national Anis Amri whose ID was found in the lorry.

It is currently unknown when he came to Germany or where he was allegedly radicalised but Isis’ propaganda service Amaq claimed the attack was “Isis-inspired”.

Amaq called Amri a “soldier of the Islamic State” and used language which matched descriptions of lone wolf attacks in Orlando and Wurzburg.

Following the claim of responsibility, German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere vowed that “nobody would rest until the perpetrator was caught”.

He told German broadcaster ARD: “We just heard about the supposed claim of responsibility by this so-called Islamic State that is in fact a gang of terrorists.

“There are several leads that investigators are following now.”

It follows an embarrassing blunder when they initially arrested a Pakistani asylum seeker and questioned him for several hours before letting him go.

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