Photo: DPAItalian police said Friday they had helped their German counterparts neutralise a Berlin-based Islamist terror cell with links to Christmas market attack suspect Anis Amri. Italian authorities believe Congolese national Lutumba Nkanga , 26, and Moroccan Soufiane Amri, 22, were planning to travel to Istanbul en route to joining Isis in Iraq or Syria. Amri was deported to Germany while Nkanga was detained in a centre for failed asylum-seekers awaiting deportation in the southeastern port of Brindisi. Several members of the Berlin group had contact with Anis Amri and the suspected marketplace attacker was a regular visitor to lodgings shared by Soufiane Amri and Nkanga, according to the Italian police. German police did not immediately respond to requests for details of the operation against the Berlin cell which the Italians described as "a very diverse group of militants."

Source: The Local April 28, 2017 13:19 UTC