Twenty-five years after the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, jihadist groups remain a serious security concern for Europe. But EU counter-terrorism officials are now flagging a different, emerging danger: a wave of nihilistic violent extremism, largely fuelled by young people radicalised online.
Bartjan Wegter, the EU's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, described the phenomenon as “violence for the sake of violence.” In an interview with the Associated Press in Brussels, he noted that these acts are not driven by a coherent ideology but by a fascination with brutality and a desire for status within online communities.
A new breed of extremism
The scale of this threat is difficult to quantify. Europol does not maintain specific statistics on nihilistic violent extremism because definitions vary and such acts often overlap with ordinary criminality. However, a coordinated police operation in June and July, involving investigators from nine European countries, identified around 4,340 web addresses linked to “The COM,” an online community associated with this movement.
Last year, EU member states reported 45 terrorist attacks across ten countries, none of which resulted in mass casualties. Six people were killed, and 486 suspects were arrested across 21 member states. Jihadist groups, often guided by networks outside Europe, were responsible for 24 of these attacks and accounted for more than 70% of the arrests.
Notably, about one-third of those arrested were under 18, mostly boys. This demographic shift is central to the new threat. In Finland in 2025, a 16-year-old boy stabbed three female students, allegedly sharing a “manifesto” on WhatsApp and recording the attack on Snapchat. The document expressed a desire to do something “significant” and “exciting,” with no political motive.
In Italy, a 15-year-old planned a murder to gain notoriety online, keeping graphic images and videos on his phone. Wegter stressed that these incidents are not isolated but are organised by online networks “often driven by young people, for young people often involving young boys.”
Online radicalisation and AI
The online environment has become a “petri dish for the connection between different threats,” Wegter said. He pointed to the difficulty of tracking such individuals, who often have no criminal record and operate behind encrypted walls. “They don’t leave any footprints other than online perhaps, but then it’s often behind encrypted walls and communities,” he added.
One group on authorities' radar is 764, founded by American Bradley Cadenhead, who is serving an 80-year prison sentence for child pornography and sex offences. The group remains active; in Germany, a 20-year-old alleged leading member faces 123 charges of “unimaginable level of brutality and inhumanity,” including murder, rape, and child sexual abuse.
Artificial intelligence is amplifying the problem. Europol reports that criminals are using AI to create and edit propaganda, including deepfakes, memes, and GIFs. AI-powered bots are being used to boost recruitment and promote terrorist ideologies, while AI-driven apps help in research for planning attacks. This technological dimension adds a new layer of complexity for law enforcement.
Privacy advocates argue that people have a fundamental right to communicate without unjustified intrusion, and they accuse authorities of undermining protections through spyware. Wegter, however, insists that law enforcement must be equipped to deal with the threat as it exists today. “85% of investigations take place in the digital environment,” he said, meaning that “we have to adjust ourselves to that.”
For the Dutch diplomat, this also means closer cooperation with international partners, particularly countries that serve as rear bases for these networks. “Because what happens outside our borders impacts on our security,” he said, including what is amplified online.
As Europe marks the anniversary of 9/11, the nature of the terrorist threat has evolved dramatically. The challenge now is not only to prevent large-scale plots but also to address a diffuse, online-driven culture of violence that can erupt anywhere, often with little warning.
