SUMMARY
Germany was officially reunified on 3 October 1990, after being separated into East and West Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. Since then, Germany has established itself as a major player in the international community, especially in the European Union and in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Germany has sent troops to take part in several NATO operations and missions, among others, German soldiers has been part of the KFOR forces in Kosovo and the ISAF forces in Afghanistan. Germany has also been a major contributor to UN peacekeeping, by sending financial support as well as troops. For instance, German UN-troops have served in the MINUSMA mission in Mali and in the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon.
When it comes to conflicts on German territory the country has largely been spared from such violence since the harrowing decades of the First and Second World War. However, there have been some instances of violence over the years; several of these instances have been connected to conflicts in other countries. One such example was the killing of a number British soldiers by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, better known as the IRA, in 1989 and 1990. The group fought the Government of United Kingdom concerning the constitutional status of the territory of Northern Ireland.
One of the most high profile cases that has taken place in Germany was the political bombings, robberies and murders by the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, during the 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, these attacks did not result in more than a handful of deaths, have thus not met the UCDP thresholds and so have not been included as a conflict.
When the Islamic extremist group named IS spread by gaining supporters outside of its territories in Iraq and Syria, starting around 2014, so did the IS attacks on civilians. On 19 December 2016, a large truck was driven into a crowd of people that visited the annual Christmas Market in Berlin and killed 12 people. IS claimed responsibility for the attack, and a few days later the suspected driver of the truck was killed in a shootout with Italian police in Milan.
