[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] Armed police tonight stormed two apartments in the hunt for the Berlin terror attack suspect after it was revealed he had been under the surveillance of German intelligence agencies for several months.Commandos raided two addresses in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighbourhood, local media reported, as police continued a Europe-wide search for Tunisian national Anis Amri, who remains on the run more than 48 hours after the atrocity which claimed 12 lives.
Police believed Amri might have been holed up inside one of the apartments, German newspaper Die Welt reported. A man was 'overpowered' by officers at one address, it was reported.
German security services face difficult questions after it emerged that Amris, a lifelong criminal, should have been deported months ago.
The 23-year-old, who has a 100,000 euro reward on his head, was under close surveillance of German intelligence for several months following his arrival in the country last year.
He was tossed in the clink
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
three times this year and his asylum application was rejected, but deportation papers were never served and he disappeared.
The Tunisian radical was known to be a supporter of 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....
and to have received weapons training.
He tried to recruit an accomplice for a terror plot ‐ which the authorities knew about ‐ but still remained on the lam.
He was under investigation for planning a ’serious act of violence against the state’ and counter-terrorism officials had exchanged information about him last month.
Last night it emerged the runaway spent four years in an Italian prison for acts of violence and vandalism inside a migrant centre where he was being kept following his arrival in Europe. The prison in Palermo, Sicily, is where mafia bosses and gangsters are locked up. Tunisian security officials also revealed he was convicted in absentia for aggravated theft with violence in his home country.
A senior foreign German politician today blamed the atrocity on 'institutional political correctness', arguing that Amri would not have been free to act if police had enforced the law.
Meanwhile a European arrest warrant issued for Amri reveals the runaway has used at least six different aliases under three different nationalities. Photographs show how he has changed his appearance over the years.
Today his family, who remain in Tunisia, were questioned by local police as his siblings condemned acts of terrorism, saying Amri 'deserves every condemnation' if he is guilty of the massacre.