not only in Germany – were drawing on widespread fear of immigrants and the
anti-Islam sentiments fostered by incidents of extremist violence.
Terrorism, which had burst into the spotlight on 11 September 2001,
increasingly plagued Europe in the following years. London tube and bus
transport was the subject of bombings in July 2005. Terrorism struck at the heart
of Paris in both January and November 2015, inaugurating a period of steadily
rising numbers of incidents and fatal attacks not only in France but elsewhere in
Europe. Coordinated mass sexual assaults took place in Cologne and other
German cities during New Year celebrations at the turn of 2015–16; individual
terrorist attacks took place in separate small towns in southern Germany in July
2016; and in December 2016 a truck was purposefully driven into a Christmas
market in central Berlin, killing a dozen people and injuring many others. While
individual extremists were clearly motivated by radical Islam, there was a risk
that in popular perceptions all Muslims and migrants from Islamic countries
would be seen in much the same light.
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