Within hours of the attacks, and while Denmark police are still trying to sort through the various shooting scenes in Copenhagen; and while suspects have not yet been identified – the New York Times jumps in to deflect attention: “Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment is rising in Europe”…
It only took the Times four paragraphs to turn the still evolving story from an Islamist gunman targeting Jews and Cartoonists, to an apologetic spin on Muslims as victims of publicity.
LONDON — Two attacks shook Copenhagen, with a gunman spraying bullets into a cafe where a Swedish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet Mohammad was speaking, followed hours later by a shooting outside the city’s main synagogue early Sunday morning.
One man was killed in the cafe attack on Saturday and three police officers were wounded; a man was shot in the head in the second attack and later died, and two officers were wounded, Danish television reported. It was not clear if the attacks were linked, but in each case the gunman escaped, raising fears throughout the capital.
Police swarmed into the city center, evacuating a train station, setting up roadblocks and warning people to remain indoors. Police later said they had shot and killed a man near Norrebro station who had shot at them first, according to TV2, a Danish station.
The latest violence comes as Europe is increasingly on edge over the January assaults on a French satirical newspaper and a kosher supermarket in Paris, the worst spasm of terrorism in France in decades. Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment is rising in Europe, and although there was no indication who was responsible for the shootings in Copenhagen, Twitter was ablaze with anti-Muslim indictments.

Fears are also rising about European Muslims who have become radicalized. Denmark, like many European countries, has seen young Danes going to Iraq and Syria to fight with jihadists. At least 100 Danes have done so. Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt had earlier called the shooting at the Krudttoenden cafe a terrorist attack and said that the nation was on high alert. “We feel certain now that it was a politically motivated attack, and thereby it was a terrorist attack,” Ms. Thorning-Schmidt said.
The Swedish cartoonist who may have been the target at the cafe shooting, Lars Vilks, 68, was unharmed, and the police said Saturday evening that there had been only one gunman in that attack, after initially reporting that there were two. The gunman, wearing a maroon balaclava over his head, escaped in a dark Volkswagen Polo, which was later found empty. The French ambassador to Denmark, who had been at the event, wrote on Twitter that he also was not hurt. (read more)