A man driving a semi-truck drove into a Christmas market in the Breitscheidplatz in central Berlin on Dec. 19, killing 12 people and injuring 49 others. The body of the registered driver of the truck was found in the passenger seat. It is believed he was killed and the truck stolen. 

The suspected hijacker of the truck, a Tunisian man seeking asylum in Germany, was killed on Dec. 23 during a gunfight with police in Milan, Italy. One officer was wounded in the shootout. After his...

A suicide bomber struck a group of soldiers in line to receive their salaries in the city of Aden, Yemen, on Dec. 18, killing 48 people and injuring 84 others. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack.

A civil war in Yemen between the Yemeni government, with help from a coalition of Arab states, and Houthi rebels has been ongoing since September 2014. Aden became the seat of the internationally recognized government after Houthi rebels captured the capital, Sana’a.

A magnitude-6.5 earthquake occurred off the coast of the province of Aceh, on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, on Dec. 7, killing at least 97 people, injuring hundreds of others and leaving more than 45,000 people homeless.

Aceh was the epicenter of the 2004 earthquake that triggered the tsunami that killed almost 300,000 people in Asian countries bordering the Indian Ocean, including more than 160,000 in Indonesia, alone.