Berlin market attack suspect killed in police shootout in Italy

Italian police shot dead the man believed to be responsible for this week's Berlin Christmas market truck attack, killing him after he pulled a gun on them during a routine check in the early hours of Dec. 23. 

The suspect - 24-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri - travelled to Italy from France, triggering a spate of criticism from eurosceptics over Europe's open-border Schengen pact. 

A police chief said his men had no idea they might be dealing with Amri when they approached him at around 3:00 a.m. (2:00 a.m. GMT) outside a station in Sesto San Giovanni, a suburb of the northern city of Milan, according to Reuters. 

Amri is suspected of driving a truck that smashed through a Berlin market on Dec. 19 killing 12 people and wounding another 48 people, and security forces across Europe have been trying to track him down. 

The truck mowed through a crowd of people and bulldozed wooden huts selling Christmas gifts and snacks beside a famous church in west Berlin. 

Militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) acknowledged Amri's death and his suspected role in the German attack - for which it has claimed responsibility - through its Amaq news agency. 

"The executor of the Berlin attacks carries out another attack on Italian police in Milan and is killed in a shoot-out," it said. 

Meanwhile, a video posted on Amaq news agency showed Amri pledging his allegiance to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and called for ISIL supporters to take revenge of "crusaders" bombing Muslims, Reuters reported. 

Milan police chief Antonio De Iesu told reporters that Amri had arrived in Milan's main railway station from France at around 1 a.m. and had then travelled to Sesto San Giovanni, where two young...