Breaking : possible terror attack in Berlin

[MagicMary1]

twitter.com/ap/status/810931083944534016

This is so sad.

I would have guessed it would be something touristy.
Small but with an international crowd for a maximum level of exposure via the media etc.

In this day and age i think police need to be armed sadly. The police need to be able to try and defend the public in the event of a terror attack.

Why are you against armed police? I mean, of ocurse i wish nobody ever needed a gun. But, idk... police having guns is fairly common in many countries

fakenamefornow - re "what do they have against Germany? Terrorism used to have a motive, some grevance they were fighting about, like the IRA, or ETA or the PLO. These days much of it just seems about hatered, what do they want?"

Are you not aware that Germany's military is currently in Syria, fighting ISIS?

Cops carry guns here in Aus. We also have a substantially lower rate of violent crime per 100,000 people.

"my understanding is that it is western culture islamic terrorists (Isis) want to destroy. Something about a holy war and we either all have to die or be converted to radical Islam?"

If ISIS has been trying to convert all of us to radical Islam their campaign must be very low key indeed, because I have never heard of it.

ISIS is fighting the local governments (Syrian, Kurdish, etc) in the area where they have taken over to make a place for themselves. They were not terribly interested in us in Western Europe, but we declared war on them and we are still involved in military operations against them. So they come and attack us in retaliation.

I'm not siding with them at all. They are the scariest bunch of nutjobs on Earth. But let's be honest about what is going on and why they are attacking France, Germany, Belgium, etc.

CoteDAzur to be honest that makes much more sense!

cotel
That is very true. And how they even came to be... well, Western countries played a very instrumental role.

But I don't think we should disregard the role religious extremism plays. Ideologies tend to make it easier to find willing terrorist. And the people actually committing these acts may very well see them as religiously motivated, despite their leaders having more than religious motivations.

Of course they are religious extremists. My point is that they are not killing people in Germany because they want to convert all Germans to Islam.

They are doing it in retaliation to Germany's military campaign against them.

Their goal is probably to cause public outrage & have people demand their elected leaders to stop waging war in the Middle East. I guess ISIS couldn't imagine people here are so disinterested in all that's going on in that part of the world that they are not even aware these European countries are involved in military operations against ISIS

ISIS is nothing more than a gulf state proxy force, as are many other "rebel" forces fighting in Syria. They are used to remake the geostrategic landscape in favour of gulf interests (which are, incidentally, taking out Assad).

It became clear before the sochi Olympics that "cells" have been embedded in other countries precisely to be used as a form of blackmail to affect policy in those countries to certain gulf states' liking.

The only thing "religious" about these groups is the bollocks they spew in order to attract cannon fodder from western countries, and to terrify and suppress the local population once they take over an area.

Everything ISIS does aligns with gulf state interests, which is why, if you notice, they have never moved into certain contested areas.

No to armed police and no to reduced gun control - there is simply no evidence at all that either would make our country safer.

The UK is, by and large, very safe.

Armed police didn't prevent Nice or the Paris attacks. The terrorists always have the element of surprise so the deaths have happened before police have time to react.

Guns on the streets would make all of us infinitely less safe.

So it seems that the truck was hijacked and the Polish driver killed? Just awful! 12 dead and multiples injured. Thinking of you all in Berlin. The shock of this is dreadful.

It's a bit of a joke that there is more hatred displayed here at Katy Hopkins for criticising partisan censorship of terror attacks than at the person or people who just murdered 12 people and injured dozens more.

That people seem to be more concerned that people don't say nasty things to migrants than for the people who had their bones and organs crushed under the wheels of a HGV.

Rather than sat on here giving it the fake sympathy why don't you actually stop backing policies which allow these events to happen? Why don't you oppose the Schengen Zone and freedom of movement which enable such groups to move arms, explosives and people with ease? If you really care about the people who died today and the people who will die in the future why don't you oppose unsustainable mass migration?

Schengen and FOM are dying, if the temporary suspension of the Schengen Zone following the Paris attacks wasn't indicative of its weaknesses I don't know what it. Probably the only reason we haven't been attacked is we have our own border controls but even then it isn't full proof, it simply encourages potential attackers to chose easier targets on the continent.

All I want to say is that UK hasn't allowed the refugees/migrants en masse into the country, and although we can, in part, thank our excellent secret services, we therefore haven't been at the same risk of a recent arrival turning on their host country and attempting to murder some of it's citizens.

The Schengen agreement is biting Europe on its arse.

Great post rale

Yep, there's a reason these events are occurring primarily in France and Germany, and it's because they've allowed mass immigration without proper vetting. You can't just allow anyone and everyone to flood into your country and then be surprised when something like this happens.

Bloody glad I live in Australia where we aren't under this immense sort of pressure that European countries are, and that Merkel et al. give in to.

That being said, I think she's sealed her fate. As has Hollande.

Shit post rale

Police in Germany are armed. Didn't stop it. French police have guns too.

Ah, rale, but you're forgetting: when civilians die in Aleppo that's sad. When they die in Europe it's just one of those things and doesn't really matter.

The problem with the idea of allowing civilians to carry guns "in case of" attacks like this is that civilians are not trained to use guns in stressful situations. It doesn't matter how many weekends you've spent at the shooting range, it's not a comparable situation to being under extreme stress and fear of a real terrorist attack, people don't react in predictable ways.

Better to let police and/or military handle the guns in situations like these.

Because it has nothing to do with guns. I don't even know how that issue came about on this thread.

Well said Rale. Those up for mass migration with no checks should welcome them into their villages and towns. They'd soon back track! They are happy for the unchecked migrants to come through so long as it's not affecting them.