Jihadist groups still pose a major threat to Europe, but 25 years after the 9/11 attacks a new menace driven by young people online is emerging BRUSSELS -- A quarter of a century after the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, jihadist groups still pose a major threat to security in Europe, but a new menace has surfaced that is driven mostly by young people online and the authorities are worried. The exact size of the network behind what is being called nihilistic violent extremism is unclear. But police investigators from nine European countries found about 4,340 URL web addresses linked to “The COM,” as the online community has become known, during a campaign to disrupt it in June and July.
Overall last year, 45 terrorist attacks were reported across 10 of the 27 EU countries, although none of them were major, mass-casualty incidents. About half were foiled or failed, but six people were killed. A total of 486 people suspected of terror links were arrested in 21 member countries, according to the EU police agency Europol.
Jihadist groups — often guided or inspired by networks outside Europe — were behind 24 of the attacks and accounted for more than 70% of the arrests. Of all those taken into custody, around one third were aged under 18, mostly boys. Europol does not keep statistics on nihilistic violent extremism because definitions of it differ and acts can fall into the category of ordinary criminality as well as terrorism.
But in Finland in 2025, a 16-year-old boy stabbed three female student colleagues. He allegedly shared a “manifesto” in WhatsApp groups, recorded the attack on Snapchat, and asked on social media for someone to save and give him the video after his release. In the “manifesto,” he said that he wanted to do something “significant” and “exciting.” No political motive was given for his rampage, according to an EU document on the emerging threat of nihilistic extremist violence.
It’s violence as a means of asserting oneself, as a means of gaining status in those online communities,” Wegter told AP. He kept images and videos of assaults, murders, school shootings and child pornography on his smartphone. Wegter said these kinds of incidents, which have been on the rise for two to three years, are not isolated but organized by online networks that are “often driven by young people, for young people often involving young boys.” He said that they “lead to offline violence.
We’ve seen stabbings, a young individual stabbing an elderly person for no reason whatsoever.” Such attacks are tough to prevent or track. They often involve “young individuals who will not have a criminal record, usually, who don’t leave any footprints other than online perhaps, but then it’s often behind encrypted walls and communities,” Wegter said. High on the list of groups authorities’ radar is 764, which was founded by an American high school dropout, Bradley Cadenhead.
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