EU Warns Disturbing New Online Youth Extremism Threat Is Turning Violence Into Status 25 Years After 9/11
Europe’s New Digital Extremism Threat Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks transformed the global understanding of terrorism. European security officials are warning that a very different threat is emerging. Instead of structured organisations, distant training camps and clearly defined ideology, some of the people now causing greatest concern are young, heavily online and connected through loose digital communities in which violence itself can become a source of identity, recognition and status. The traditional threat has not disappeared. Jihadist terrorism remained the largest category recorded in the European Union during 2025, accounting for 24 of the 45 terrorist attacks reported across ten member states and 347 of 486 terrorism-related arrests. But European authorities increasingly describe another layer of danger that sits awkwardly between terrorism, violent extremism, cybercrime, exploitation and apparently ideology-free brutality.