{
  "id": 6240557,
  "title": "EU warns of a chilling new terror menace 25 years after 9/11 as online youths seek violent thrills",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/08/eu-warns-of-a-chilling-new-terror-menace-25-years-after-9-11-as",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-08T05:23:02.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Associated Press",
    "slug": "associated-press",
    "url": "https://apnews.com/article/911-europe-terrorism-coordinator-interview-wegter-extremism-662ea092c50b808542d7a1cc2f480ce6"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Two and a half decades after the 9/11 attacks, European Union authorities are sounding the alarm about a fresh terror threat. This peril is not rooted in traditional jihadist extremism, but in a disturbing new phenomenon known as nihilistic violent extremism, driven primarily by young people on the internet. Authorities have expressed concern over the scale and potential impact of this new menace.\n\nInvestigators from nine European nations recently uncovered around 4,340 online links associated with what they call \"The COM,\" the name given to this online community. The purpose of this network is violence, pure and simple, according to Bartjan Wegter, the EU's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator. Wegter's remarks come in the year leading up to the 25th anniversary of the 2001 terror strikes on the United States.\n\nLast year, 45 terrorist attacks were recorded across 10 of the 27 EU countries. However, the majority of these incidents were small-scale, with none resembling the mass casualty events seen in 2001. The attacks were carried out by 486 suspects across 21 member states, with 24 of them attributed to jihadist groups. Almost 70% of these arrests were linked to jihadist networks, often influenced or inspired by external forces.\n\nA worrying aspect of this emerging threat is the involvement of minors. In Finland, a 16-year-old boy was arrested after stabbing three fellow students in 2025. He allegedly circulated his actions via WhatsApp groups and Snapchat, seeking someone to share the video of his attack with him. His \"manifesto\" revealed a desire to commit an act of violence for its own sake, devoid of any political motive. According to EU documents, 33% of those arrested were under 18, with most being teenage boys. Europol does not track nihilistic violent extremism due to the lack of a universally accepted definition and the overlap between this form of extremism and regular criminality.",
  "summary": "BRUSSELS (AP) — A quarter of a century after the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, jihadist groups still pose a major threat to security in Europe, but a new menace has surfaced that is driven…",
  "key_points": [
    "EU warns of new terror threat 25 years after 9/11",
    "Nihilistic violent extremism driven by online youths",
    "33% of arrests were minors seeking violent thrills"
  ],
  "editors_take": "The emergence of nihilistic violent extremism driven by young people online poses a fresh concern for European authorities, shifting the focus from traditional jihadist groups to a new, unpredictable threat.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 5,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Winnipeg Free Press",
        "title": "EU warns of a chilling new terror menace 25 years after 9/11 as online youths seek violent thrills",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/08/eu-warns-of-a-chilling-new-terror-menace-25-years-after-9-11-as-6242210",
        "published": "2026-09-08T05:12:30.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "The Korea Times",
        "title": "EU warns of chilling new terror menace 25 years after 9/11 as online youths seek violent thrills",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/08/eu-warns-of-chilling-new-terror-menace-25-years-after-9-11-as-online",
        "published": "2026-09-08T06:02:03.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "ABC News (US)",
        "title": "EU warns of new menace 25 years after 9/11 as online youths seek violent thrills",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/08/eu-warns-of-new-menace-25-years-after-9-11-as-online-youths-seek",
        "published": "2026-09-08T07:09:33.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "The Times of Israel",
        "title": "EU warns of chilling new terror menace as online youths seek nihilistic violent thrills",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/08/eu-warns-of-chilling-new-terror-menace-as-online-youths-seek",
        "published": "2026-09-08T08:40:31.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}