5. Strategy and Tactics of New Terrorism

This chapter analyses the Jihadi terrorist attacks in Europe between 2015 and 2018 and demonstrates that Western democracies and their security authorities have to be prepared for a highly heterogeneous Jihadi threat. Thousands of Islamist and potential Jihadi websites and portals on the Internet promote operative and tactical advice and instructions for terrorist attacks. The spectrum of potential types of attack ranges from a simple kitchen knife to vehicle attacks, improvised explosive devices or even biological agents (viruses, bacteria). The threat of copycats is therefore a high risk for the future as the terrorists in Nice (2016), Berlin (2016), London (2017) and Stockholm (2017) all used an Al Qaida and IS operational and tactical blueprint, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians with vehicles.