Jihadist Terrorism Arrests Persistently High in the EU

Terrorism continued to represent a major threat to EU member states in 2024 according to Europol, especially the type eminating from jihadist sources. While only five people were reported killed in jihadist terrorist attacks across the EU last year, arrests for suspected jihadist offenses remained high across the bloc. While in 2016, the year after the major Paris terror attacks, more than 700 arrests for suspected jihadist terror were made in EU-27 countries, this number still stood between 260 and 340 in the last couple of years. Six jihadist attacks were carried out last year while 18 were foiled, showing the continued high level of alert around the topic. Three deaths were reported in an attack at a city festival in Solingen, Germany, while one death each occurred in Ireland and the Netherlands. All incidents were stabbings.

Even though they didn't lead to any deaths, right-wing terror suspect arrest were close to 50 in 2024, followed by ethno-nationalist and separatist as well as left-wing and anarchist terror-related arrests.

Overall there were 58 foiled, failed and completed terrorist attacks in the EU in 2024, a big decline on the 98 recorded by Europol in the EU-27 in 2017. 24 of last year's attacks were jihadist in nature. Terrorism led to 449 arrests (289 jihadist) in 2024, compared to more than 800 (705 jihadist) in 2017.