With Christmas, the biggest holiday in the Christian world, just days away, the European continent has again been gripped by terror fears. Before the nightmares of the Berlin truck attack that killed 12 people in 2016 and, just a year ago, the Magdeburg car-ramming disaster in 2024 that took six lives had even faded, large-scale terror plots targeting Christmas markets were uncovered in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere.
Reuters reported on the 16th that Polish prosecutors indicted a 19-year-old college student, Mateusz W., on charges of planning a bomb attack linked to the Islamic State (ISIS). According to an investigation by the Internal Security Agency (ABW), Mateusz, a student at the Catholic University of Lublin, was found to have been deeply immersed in Islam.
The Internal Security Agency arrested him at his home on the 30th of last month and seized terror-related data and Islam-related items as evidence. Jacek Dobrzyński, Spokesperson for Poland's special forces, said, "The suspect planned to detonate explosives at a Christmas market in a specific city to cause mass casualties," adding, "We will not disclose specific information about the city that was targeted, considering the fear this could cause among its residents."
Two days earlier, on the 14th, authorities in the German state of Bavaria arrested five Islamic extremists on suspicion of plotting an attack targeting a Christmas market. Those arrested were one Egyptian, one Syrian, and three Moroccan nationals.
According to German outlet Deutsche Welle, they plotted the crime around an Egyptian suspect who served as an imam (Islamic cleric) at a mosque in Germany. Bavarian investigators said the Egyptian suspect abused his clerical position to incite followers, saying, "Use a vehicle to ram into a Christmas market" and "kill as many infidels as possible."
In Europe, the Christmas season has long been a prime target for terrorists. It began in 2014 in France. In Nantes, Dijon, and other places at the time, a string of incidents occurred in which attackers shouted "Allahu Akbar (God is great)" and drove vehicles into pedestrians.
In 2016 in Berlin, Germany, Anis Amri, a Tunisian national, drove a stolen heavy truck into the Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz. Twelve people were killed and 56 were injured. The attack fueled skepticism about Germany's refugee-friendly policies and shook European politics more broadly. Similar crimes followed, including the 2018 mass shooting at the Strasbourg Christmas market in France, which left five dead.
On Dec. 20 last year, a major disaster also struck in Magdeburg, Germany, ahead of Christmas. At the time, Taleb Al Abdolmohsen, a doctor from Saudi Arabia, drove an SUV into a Christmas market packed with crowds. As a result, six people were killed and more than 300 were injured. Al Abdolmohsen is currently on trial at the Magdeburg court. During the proceedings, Al Abdolmohsen claimed that "German authorities persecuted me," showing no sign of remorse and drawing widespread outrage from the bereaved families and the German public.
Counterterrorism experts said terrorists are attacking Christmas events, the pinnacle of Christian culture, to maximize their hatred of Western civilization and spread fear across society.
Christmas markets are mostly held in open squares or on streets, making them more accessible than "hard targets" like airports or government offices. They are also representative soft targets where large-scale damage can be inflicted at low cost because large numbers of unspecified people are crowded together.
German authorities installed large concrete barriers around markets and stepped up armed police patrols after the 2016 Berlin attack. But as the Magdeburg case last year showed, even thick barriers failed to do their full job against a determined terrorist.
In a report analyzing the spate of Christmas-season attacks, Sebastian von Münchow of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies said, "Failures to share intelligence among agencies and inadequate surveillance systems are why such attacks were not prevented," adding, "Mistakes and complacency by security authorities are repeatedly leading to major disasters."
The annually recurring terror threats at Christmas are rapidly pushing Europe's political landscape to the right. European public sentiment, once lenient on accepting immigrants, has turned cold. In particular, the fact that the Magdeburg suspect last year was a Saudi-born doctor and that this year's Bavarian plotters included an imam, a religious leader, poured fuel on anti-Islam sentiment.
Germany's far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) is riding this wave to boost its approval ratings. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel criticized the Magdeburg incident, saying the "madness caused by the government's failed immigration policy shows no sign of ending." Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders also argued that Europe's borders should be closed to "Islamic extremists."
European governments have been thrown into a dilemma. U.S. political outlet Politico reported that "Europe's far-right forces are seizing on the Christmas market attacks to aggressively push anti-immigrant, anti-Islam agendas," adding, "With security failures repeating, voters are showing greater interest in far-right parties."