The European Police Agency Europol released its annual terrorism trend report on July 20. In 2015, 151 people died and over 360 were injured as a result of terrorist attacks in the EU – numbers that will likely be eclipsed by 2016 statistics. Six European Union (EU) member states faced 211 failed, foiled and completed terrorist attacks in 2015. 1,077 individuals were arrested in the EU for terrorism-related offences, of which 424 were in France. 94 percent of the individuals on trial for jihadist terrorism were found guilty and prosecuted.
The report, known as TE-SAT 2016, stresses that lone wolf attacks remained a favored tactic by the so called Islamic State group and Al Qaeda. Two worrying developments were outlined: the overall threat has been reinforced by the substantial numbers of returned foreign terrorist fighters that many EU countries now have on their soil, and the significant rise in nationalist (xenophobic), racist and anti-Semitic sentiments across the EU, each resulting in acts of right-wing extremism.