A wave of attacks against civilians in Europe over the past month has rekindled fears of self-radicalized, "lone wolf" perpetrators inspired by and acting in the name of Islamic State, but without having direct contact with the group.
The attacks began on July 14 in Nice, France, when a Tunisian man drove a 19-ton refrigerated truck into a large crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks, killing 84 people and injuring hundreds. It took 36 hours for IS to claim responsibility for the atrocity, issuing a statement that called the attacker "a soldier of the Islamic State" who had responded to its leaders' call "to target states participating in the Crusader coalition that fights the caliphate." But despite the claim, French investigators have so far found no evidence that the driver had been in contact with any IS operatives.
Four days after the Nice attack, a 17-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan went on a rampage on a train near the German city of Wuerzburg, wounding five people with an ax. On July 24, a Syrian man who had been denied asylum in Germany blew himself up outside a wine bar in the city of Ansbach, wounding 15 people. Before the attack, the man had recorded a cellphone video in which he pledged allegiance to IS and declared that Germans "won't be able to sleep peacefully anymore."