Arrests for jihadist Islamic terrorism soared in Europe last year – including a doubling in Ireland – as did attacks, while both attacks and arrests related to right-wing terrorism fell across the continent according to a new report.
The Europol report, European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend report 2024, shows that nine terrorism arrests were made in Ireland last year for jihadist Islamic extremism, which is up from four in both 2022 and 2021.
According to the report, which is compiled using data from member states, 426 individuals were arrested in 2023 for terrorist offences across 22 member states.
Most arrests were for offences related to jihadist terrorism (334), which the report notes also accounted for the overall increase in arrests compared to the year before.
Jihadist terrorist attacks were also the most lethal last year, resulting in six victims killed and twelve injured across a number of member states.
This came about as a result of fourteen jihadist terrorist attacks (compared to six in 2022): five were completed; two in France and one each in Belgium, Germany and Spain; while nine were foiled.
Jihadism is defined by the report as “a violent sub-current of Salafism, a revivalist Sunni Muslim movement that rejects democracy and elected parliaments, arguing that human legislation is at odds with God’s status as the sole lawgiver”.
“Jihadists aim to create an Islamic state governed exclusively by Islamic law (shari’a), as they interpret it. Unlike other Salafist currents, jihadists legitimise the use of violence by referring to the classical Islamic doctrines on jihad, a term that literally means ‘striving’ or ‘exertion’, but which jihadists treat as religiously sanctioned warfare,” the report’s definition reads.
Right-wing terror last year was down on previous years, with two attacks (both foiled) and 26 arrests compared with four attacks and 45 arrests in 2022.
Ireland saw just one arrest last year in relation to right-wing terror offences.
The report states that “violent right-wing actors” seek to “use violence to transform the entire political, social and economic system into an authoritarian model, rejecting democratic order and values and fundamental rights”.
“Violent right-wing ideologies use narratives centred on exclusionary nationalism, racism, xenophobia and/or related intolerance. A core concept of right-wing violent extremism is supremacism or the idea that as a group of people sharing a common element (nation, race, culture, etc.), they are superior to all others and consider it to be their natural right to dominate the rest of the population. In addition, right-wing violent extremist ideologies feed on a variety of hateful sub-cultures, that often oppose diversity in society and equal rights of minorities, such as misogyny and hostility towards LGBTQ+ communities and anti-immigration attitudes,” it says.
In analysing “right-wing terror and violent extremism” it says that “fitness centres focusing on combat training and sports have become very popular in EU right-wing circles and can be abused as a cover for radicalisation and networking for terrorist and violent extremist purposes”.
Meanwhile, “ethno-nationalist and separatist” attacks were found to have surged in the last year, from none in 2022 to 70 in 2023.
All 70 were completed and were carried out in Corsica, France, with the majority of arrests targeting individuals connected to the Fronte di Liberazione Naziunale Corsu (FLNC) and Ghjuventù clandestina Corsa (GcC).
In 2023, four individuals connected to Dissident Republican groups were arrested in Ireland for terrorist offences.
In January 2023, two men were arrested on suspicion of membership of the IRA, while in April, a man and a woman were arrested for possession of explosives and membership in the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army). Both were released without charges, according to the report.
This brand of terrorism is defined by the report as motivated by “nationalism, ethnicity and/or religion” on the one hand, and by a desire to “carve out a state for themselves from a larger country or annex territory from one country to that of another” on the other.
“Left-wing or right-wing ideological elements are not uncommon in ethno-nationalist and separatist terrorist groups,” it says.