Islamic terrorism (also known as "Islamist terrorism" or "Jihadist terrorism") has been carried out in Europe by the jihadist groups Islamic State (ISIL) or Al-Qaeda as well as Islamist lone wolves since the late 20th century. Europol, which releases the annual EU Terrorism Situation and Trend report (TE-SAT), used the term "Islamist terrorism" in reports for the years 2006–2010, "religiously inspired terrorism" for the years 2011–2014, and has used "jihadist terrorism" since then. Europol defines jihadism as "a violent ideology exploiting traditional Islamic concepts".

In the 2000s, the deadliest attacks of this period were the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 193 civilians (the deadliest Islamist attack in Europe), and the 7 July 2005 London bombings, which killed 52.

After 2014, there was a rise in Islamic terrorist incidents in Europe.Maria do Céu Pinto Arena. Islamic Terrorism in the West and International Migrations: The 'Far' or 'Near' Enemy Within?. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, May 2017. p.15. The years 2014–16 saw more people killed by Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe than all previous years combined, and the highest rate of attack plots per year. Most of this terrorist activity was inspired by ISIL,Seamus Hughes. "Allies Under Attack: The Terrorist Threat to Europe". Program on Extremism – George Washington University. 27 June 2017. and many European states have had some involvement in the military intervention against it. A number of plots involved people who entered or re-entered Europe as asylum seekers during the European migrant crisis,Maria do Céu Pinto Arena. Islamic Terrorism in the West and International Migrations: The 'Far' or 'Near' Enemy Within?. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, May 2017. pp.15, 20 and some attackers had returned to Europe after fighting in the Syrian civil war. The Jewish Museum of Belgium shooting in May 2014 was the first attack in Europe by a returnee from the Syrian war.

While most earlier Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe were carried out by groups and involved bombs, most attacks since 2014 have been carried out by individuals using guns, knives and vehicles. The deadliest attacks of this period have been the November 2015 Paris attacks (130 killed). These attacks and threats have led to major security operations and plans such as Opération Sentinelle in France, Operation Vigilant Guardian and the Brussels lockdown in Belgium, and Operation Temperer in the United Kingdom.

Definition

The 2020 TE-SAT by Europol describes jihadism as "a violent ideology exploiting traditional Islamic concepts". Jihadists do this by exploiting the concept of jihad, which means 'striving' or 'exertion' but can also refer to religiously sanctioned warfare and aim to create an Islamic state governed exclusively by their interpretation of Islamic law. The report describes jihadism as a violent subcurrent of Salafism, while noting that other subcurrents of Salafism are quietist. The two major representatives of jihadism are al-Qaeda and ISIL.

Overview

+Jihadist terrorism in the European UnionYearAttacksDeaths20061Not reported20074Not reported20080Not reported20091Not reported20103Not reported20110Not reported2012682013012014242015171502016131352017336220182413201921102020141220211122022632023146

The first incidents of jihadist terrorism occurred in France in 1995 when a network with ties to Algeria carried out a string of bombings in Paris in retaliation for French involvement in the Algerian Civil War.

In the early 2000s, much of this terrorist activity was linked to Al-Qaeda and the plots tended to involve groups carrying out co-ordinated bombings. The deadliest attacks of this period were the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 193 civilians (the deadliest Islamist attack in Europe), and the 7 July 2005 London bombings, which killed 52.

Although militants in Syria had started to organize attacks in Europe by sending terrorist operatives to carry out attacks as early as 2012, security services in the European countries they sought to attack did not see the arrested individuals as part of a network with a cohesive strategy. Instead the general consensus saw them as radicalized individuals. Many of these operatives were arrested, while others carried out unsophisticated attacks which caused little damage but still served to overload security services.

Since 2014, more than 20 fatal attacks have been carried out in Europe. France saw eight attacks between January 2015 and July 2016; this included the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks, the November 2015 Paris attacks, and the July 2016 Nice truck attack. The United Kingdom saw three major attacks carried out in a span of four months in early 2017 (Westminster attack, Manchester Arena bombing, and London Bridge attack). Other targets in Europe have included Belgium, Germany, Russia, and Spain. The transcontinental city of Istanbul also saw both bombings and shootings, including in January 2016, June 2016 and January 2017.

In 2015, the Islamic State, which in 2014 had claimed that all Muslims were under a religious obligation to join it, declared that the only excuse for Muslims to not join the group in territories under its control was to perpetrate terrorist attacks in their current place of residence. According to Europol's annual report released in 2017, the Islamic State exploited the flow of refugees and migrants to commit acts of terrorism, which was a feature of the 2015 Paris attacks. In 2016 attack planning against Western countries took place in Syria and Iraq. Groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL had the intent and capabilities to mount mass casualty attacks with volunteers.

The Counter Extremism Project states police investigations have found links between internet radicalization and terrorist attacks. In 2019, Julian King, the European Commissioner for the Security Union, stated that terrorist content on the internet "had a role to play in every single attack on European soil in the last few years". However, Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå reviewed attacks in Western Europe between 2014 and 2017 and stated that most attackers radicalize as a result of personal contact rather than online.

In 2017, the EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove stated in an interview that there were more than 50,000 radicals and jihadists in Europe. In 2016, French authorities stated that 15,000 of the 20,000 individuals on the list of security threats belong to Islamist movements. After the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017, British authorities and MI5 estimated they had 500 ongoing investigations into 3,000 jihadist extremists as potential terrorist attackers, with a further 20,000 having been "subjects of interest" in the past, including the Manchester and Westminster attackers.

According to Lorenzo G. Vidino, jihadi terrorists in Europe mobilized by ISIL have tended to be second-generation immigrant Muslims. Consequently, countries such as Italy and Spain with a smaller demographic in this category have experienced fewer attacks than countries in Central and Northern Europe such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium.

British think tank ICSR argues for a connection between terrorism and crime: up to 40% of terrorist plots in Europe are part-financed through petty crime such as drug-dealing, theft, robberies, loan fraud and burglaries, and most jihadists have been imprisoned for petty or violent crime prior to radicalisation (some of whom radicalise while in prison). Jihadists use ordinary crime as a way to finance their activity and have also argued this to be the "ideologically correct" way to wage 'jihad 'in 'lands of war'.

According to German anthropologist Susanne Schröter, attacks in European countries in 2017 showed that the military defeat of the Islamic State did not mean the end of Islamist violence. Schröter also compared the events in Europe to a jihadist strategy formulated in 2005 by Abu Musab al-Suri, where an intensification of terror would destabilise societies and encourage Muslim youth to revolt. The expected civil war never materialised in Europe, but did occur in other regions such as Libya, Syria, Iraq and the Philippines (Battle of Marawi). +Planned and foiled Jihadist attacks in Europe Journal of Peace Research, revised figures.YearFoiled attacksLaunched attacksTotal19940111995281019962021997N/AN/AN/A19981011999N/AN/AN/A200010120015162002707200310111200410212200542620066172007617200862820094262010941320116172012841220131141520141231520151710272016322456201726204620181911302019227292020916252021101121

List of attacks

1994–1995 DateLocationArticleDetailsDeathsInjuries24–26 December 1994 Marignane near Marseille, FranceFour members of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) hijacked an Air France plane with 220 passengers in Algiers, the capital city of Algeria, intending to blow up the plane over the Eiffel Tower in Paris. 3 passengers were killed by the terrorists to put pressure on the Algerian and French governments. When the aircraft made a stopover at the Marseille Provence Airport for a refuelling, the French National Gendarmerie Intervention Group stormed the plane and killed all four hijackers.3 (+ 4 attackers)2525 July–17 October 1995 Paris and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France1995 France bombingsA series of attacks carried out by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria between July and October 1995 targeted public transport systems in Paris and Lyon, as well as a Jewish school in Villeurbanne, seeking to oppose French support of the Algerian regime during the Algerian Civil War and to extend the conflict to the former colonial ruler. 8 people were killed and 157 injured in the bombings.8157

2000–2013 DateLocationArticleDetailsDeathsInjuries15-20 November 2003 Istanbul, Turkey2003 Istanbul bombingsThe 2003 Istanbul bombings were a series of suicide attacks carried out with trucks fitted with bombs detonated at four different locations in Istanbul, Turkey on November 15 and 20, 2003.