(LifeSiteNews) — Five men –three Moroccans, a Syrian, and an Egyptian –were arrested on December 12 in Germany on suspicions of planning a deadly terrorist attack on a Christmas market in the southern state of Bavaria.

Predictably, BBC reported that authorities believe the planned attack was due to an “Islamist motive.” The would-be terrorists planned to drive a vehicle into Christmas market shoppers.

According to the BBC, the 56-year-old Egyptian “was alleged to have ‘called for a vehicle attack … with the aim of killing or injuring as many people as possible,’” with the Moroccans, aged 22, 28, and 30, agreeing to perpetrate the attack. The Egyptian, according to German newspaper Bild, was an imam at a local mosque, and the 37-year-old Syrian encouraged the would-be attackers “in their decision to commit the crime.”

According to Bavaria’s state interior minister Joachim Herrman, the attack was foiled by “excellent cooperation between our security forces.” All five men appeared before a magistrate on December 13.

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In recent years, Europe’s Christmas markets have become prominent targets. In 2016, an Islamist terrorist hijacked a truck and drove it into the crowds at a Christmas market in Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, killing 12 (including the original truck driver) and inuring 56 others. The perpetrator, Anis Amri, was shot and killed by police in Milan several days later.

On December 11, 2018, suspected Islamist extremist Chérif Chekatt attacked shoppers at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, with a knife and revolver, killing five people and wounding 11 others. He was killed in a shootout with French police two days later.

Another vehicle attack took place in Magdeburg, Germany, on December 20 of last year. Fifty-year-old Taleb Abdulmohsen rammed a rented SUV into crowds at the Christmas market, killing six people – including one child – and injuring over 300. Authorities made much of his supposedly “anti-Islamic” views, although Abdulmohsen appears to be deeply unstable and is wanted in his home country of Saudi Arabia on charges of terrorism and human trafficking.

Many other attacks have been foiled, with sources indicating that the total is likely quite high. In 2023, two German teenagers associated with the Islamic State were arrested for planning to attack a Christmas market. In 2024, an Iraqi asylum seeker was arrested for allegedly planning to ram a vehicle into people at a Christmas market, and a Turkish teen was also arrested for planning a truck attack.

As a result, European Christmas markets have become a highly visible symbol of the costs of Islamization. Police patrols, security contractors, and surveillance cameras are now a staple at many markets. Smaller markets are struggling under the costs of heightened security measures, with many German cities spending millions of euros on terror prevention. Dresden, for example, has spent over €2 million on access barriers, concrete blocks, and steel bollards to ward off vehicle attacks.

Some regions are upping the ante even further. “The German town of Külsheim is dealing with the soaring costs of terror-proofing German Christmas markets with a very festive solution: anti-tank barriers,” reported one outlet in November. “The German public media reporting this news does not even blink about how absurd the situation has become, but instead actually praises the ‘creative solution’ of the anti-tank barriers.” The Christmas anti-tank barriers purportedly cost around €1,000 a pop ($1,178), although the city boasted that it saved €30,000 ($35,355) by repurposing them.

Bag checks have also become a norm in some areas – last year, a video of German police confiscating a pocketknife from an elderly woman went viral on X:

🇩🇪🎄 German police are now confiscating pocket knives from elderly women at Christmas markets.

Exploding knife crime in Germany, which the police openly says is tied to mass immigration, has led to a security state at German Christmas markets. pic.twitter.com/nRTQRIOr2d

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) December 17, 2024

It is not elderly women, of course, who are attacking civilians with knives – it is Islamists. But to say so is to risk being accused of “profiling,” and so Europeans suffer the security measures implemented for their protection against those who have been welcomed into their countries by governments who seem unable or unwilling halt the flow of Islamic migrants.

“Of course, you have to learn from these experiences and do better,” German politician Ulrich Siegmund of the AfD said recently. “But the question must be not, ‘How do you protect Christmas markets?’ but, ‘Why do we need to protect Christmas markets?’ Go to the Czech Republic, go to Poland, go to other countries that have not opened their borders, that have not sold their own security for anything here. No, the CDU’s policies at state and federal level have brought us exactly to this point.”

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Indeed, just last month, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann – who announced the capture of the five terrorists a few days ago – emphasized in a radio address that there was no concrete evidence of planned terrorist attacks. “But of course, there is always an abstract danger, a certain underlying risk,” he added.

That was not always the case. Christmas markets did not always need armed patrols, bag checks, vehicle blockades, and anti-tank barriers. “We are losing our freedom bit by bit,” Siegmund stated. “We are giving up our way of life. And for what? That is the question.”