PARIS (AFP) - In just two weeks, Europe has suffered four attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group - two each in France and Germany.
FRANCE: CHURCH KNIFE ATTACK AND HOSTAGE-TAKING
Two attackers took five people hostage in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, northwest France, during morning mass on Tuesday (July 26).
They slit the priest's throat and critically wound another person, before being shot dead by police.
French President Francois Hollande said the attackers claimed to be from ISIS, while the group says they were its "soldiers".
GERMANY: MUSIC FESTIVAL ATTACK
On Sunday, a 27-year-old failed Syrian asylum seeker blew himself up near an open-air music festival in the southern city of Ansbach, wounding 15 others.
The Bavarian interior minister said the man had "pledged allegiance" to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, while the ISIS-linked Amaq news agency says he was a "soldier" of the group.
The asylum seeker, who was due to be deported to Bulgaria, had received treatment at a psychiatric hospital and was reported to have suicidal tendencies.
He blew himself up after failing to enter the festival.
GERMANY: TRAIN AXE ATTACK
On July 18, a 17-year-old asylum seeker, wielding an axe and a knife, attacked passengers on a Bavarian train with an axe, before attacking a passer-by.
The assailant, believed to be Afghan or Pakistani, injured five people, four of them tourists from Hong Kong.
He was shot dead by police. ISIS later released a video purportedly featuring the attacker announcing he would carry out an "operation" in Germany, and presenting himself as a "soldier of the caliphate".
FRANCE: BASTILLE DAY TRUCK ATTACK
Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian, rammed a 19-tonne truck into the crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French riviera city of Nice on July 14.
He killed 84 people, wounding more than 300. He was shot dead by police.
ISIS says Bouhlel staged the attack "in response to calls to target nations of coalition states" fighting the group.
