Jihadist Arrests in EU Doubled Last Year, Rising for Third Year in a Row

Patrick Poole | 2:57 AM on June 16, 2017
Police deal with an ongoing incident at London Bridge on June 3, 2017. (Rex Features via AP Images)

A new Europol report today on terrorism in eight European Union member states finds that jihadist arrests doubled in 2016, rising for the third year in a row:

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Deutsche Welle reports:

Europol, Europe’s top law-enforcement organization, said in its annual EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report that 718 suspects were arrested on offenses relating to jihadi terror in 2016, up from 395 in 2014.

The number of attacks dropped from 17 in 2014 to 13 last year, six of which were linked to the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) group.

The report noted that women and children, as well as young adults, were playing an increasingly important operational role.

One in four of those arrested in Britain in 2016 were women, an 18 percent increase from 2015, Europol said […]

In total 1,002 arrests were made in 2016 relating to terror activities. France had the highest number of arrest at 456, with almost a third of those detained 25 years or younger, Europol said.

There were 142 “failed, foiled or completed terrorist attacks” including those by jihadis, more than half of them in the UK.

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The Europol report breaks down the arrests by country, and notes that nearly all reported terror fatalities were from jihadist attacks:

In 2016, a total of 142 failed, foiled and completed attacks were reported by eight EU Member States. More than half (76) of them were reported by the United Kingdom. France reported 23 attacks, Italy 17, Spain 10, Greece 6, Germany 5, Belgium 4 and the Netherlands 1 attack. 142 victims died in terrorist attacks, and 379 were injured in the EU.

Although there was a large number of terrorist attacks not connected with jihadism, the latter accounts for the most serious forms of terrorist activity as nearly all reported fatalities and most of the casualties were the result of jihadist terrorist attacks. Explosives were used in 40% of the attacks and women and young adults, and even children, are playing increasingly operational roles in committing terrorist activities independently in the EU. Most arrests were related to jihadist terrorism, for which the number rose for the third consecutive year.

Earlier this month I reported here at PJ Media on global terrorism statistics from 2016 showing that terrorism has tripled globally since 2011, with deaths from terrorism in OECD countries jumping a whopping 900 percent since 2007:

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Since April I’ve been warning about another “Summer of Terror” — last year we saw an attack about every 100 hours:

Currently, Europe in 2017 is seeing an attempted terror attack every nine days:

A new report on Western terrorism suspects published earlier this week found that since 2014, nearly one-third of jihadist attacks in the West occurred in the U.S., only outpaced by France:

Despite these reports about the rapid rise in Islamic terrorism in the West, and all over the world for that matter, there are some who assure us that everything is fine:

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The recent terror attacks in the UK give evidence that all may not be OK:

Yet London Mayor Sadiq Khan seems unalarmed by the escalating terror trend:

But after the recent London Bridge terror attacks, Khan was evasive about the reported 400 potential terrorists living in his city:

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Sadly, the response by U.S. authorities about the scope and extent of the problem in the face of these startling terrorism statistics from these recent reports would most likely be as evasive as Khan’s unreassuring response.

Patrick Poole
For media inquiries, please contact [email protected]

Patrick Poole is a national security and terrorism correspondent for PJMedia. Follow him on Twitter.
Category: HOMELAND SECURITY
Tags: HOMELAND SECURITY

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