Day: July 18, 2026

Europol recently published its latest figures on the terrorist threat across the European Union. Once again, they came as an enormous disappointment to the progressive-minded part of the continent. Attacks from the extreme right are being blown out of proportion, while attacks from Muslim fundamentalists (Jihadists) and the radical left are (often) deliberately overlooked.

By Paul Cliteur
Let’s look at the actual figures of Europol. What can we learn? Of the 45 terrorist attacks carried out in 2025:

• 24 were jihadists;
• 12 were left-wing extremists or anarchists;
• 5 were right-wing terrorists;
• 4 fell into other categories or were not further classified.

These figures, from Europol’s European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2026, relate to 2025. Thus, in 2025 there were ‘only’ five right-wing terrorist attacks, compared with 24 jihadist attacks and 12 left-wing extremist attacks.

This naturally causes panic among the centrist parties, especially Pro and D66. All the propaganda of the mainstream media, the government and the progressive centre parties is aimed at presenting the ‘far right’ as the number-one danger.

Yet what do the figures show? Just five attacks.

It therefore also becomes clear that the government’s propaganda campaign to proclaim the far right as the great danger must be regarded as a failure. As Björn Harms explains in his book Der NGO-Komplex: Wie die Politik unser Steuergeld verprasst (2025), the struggle against the ‘far right’ is conducted primarily by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Yet these NGOs receive millions in taxpayers’ money from the government—contrary to what their name might suggest—to combat supposed ‘racism’ and the ‘far right’ in Western democracies.

Fighting the ‘far right’ is their obsession. Why an obsession? Because all the quantitative empirical evidence reaching us, including Europol’s figures, shows that jihadism, not the far right, is the primary threat.

The picture of the terrorist threat in 2025 is consistent with that for 2024. Europol’s European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2025 revealed a similar pattern. The figures then were:

• 24 jihadist-motivated attacks
• 21 left-wing extremist-motivated attacks
• 1 right-wing extremist-motivated attack

The Dutch National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) and the Dutch public broadcaster NOS remain undaunted. A public broadcasting report carries the headline: ‘NCTV: Threat from jihadism remains high, several attacks prevented’.

Both the Dutch public broadcaster and the NCTV must therefore also acknowledge that jihadism poses a substantial danger. Still, they seek to soften this by observing that the threat from jihadism ‘remains high’.

In other words, they suggest that we are on the right track in combating jihadism but that, unfortunately, jihadism remains a significant factor.

The reality, of course, is that jihadism has for many years been the principal source of terrorists—not the far right. This was already the case in 2004, when Theo van Gogh fell victim to a jihadist, and it is no different in 2026.

Jihadist theoterrorism—to use the terminology established in my 2019 book Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech—is the number-one security risk when it comes to terrorism. In fairness, it must also be said that the Dutch government is making no progress whatsoever in countering the ideology of jihadism.

This is hardly surprising, because the government pays scarcely any attention to the ideology behind jihadism. It is obsessed with the ‘far right’, even though the ‘far right’ was responsible in the countries of the European Union for, let me repeat, one attack in 2024 and five attacks in 2025.

While, by contrast, there were 24 jihadist attacks in the same time period.

The post Europol’s Terrorist Threat figures are unambiguous: Jihadism is the greatest threat first appeared on The Liberum.