Berlin attacker had 14 aliases, was subject of repeated counterterror briefings

BERLIN — The Tunisian man who plowed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market had lived under 14 aliases and was so well known to German officials that a key counterterrorism committee had discussed his case seven times, suggesting the scale of the missed opportunities to thwart the Dec. 19 attack.

The fresh details about Anis Amri — shot dead in Italy four days after the attack — emerged Thursday during testimony in the regional parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, where the suspect once lived. German officials have already said that Amri had previously been flagged as a terrorism threat. But Ralf Jäger, the state’s interior minister, described for lawmakers in Düsseldorf how the Joint Counter-Terrorism Center, an institution coordinating the work of Germany’s security agencies, had discussed his case repeatedly.

He also said that six months of surveillance had yielded nothing concrete, suggesting an operative highly skilled at hiding his resolve, or a failure of German law enforcement to adequately monitor him.

Speaking to reporters on the day of the hearing, Jäger said that German officials felt they did not have enough on Amri to detain him.

Read the whole story from The Washington Post.

Featured image courtesy of AFP.