Fears of increasing “lone wolf” terrorism in Europe have emerged after concerns that Al Qaeda’s latest propaganda magazine could trigger a new wave of attacks.
With an 18-year-old Swedish man going on trial on Thursday for conspiring to commit a terrorist act in Stockholm on behalf of ISIS, security analysts are concerned about a rise in radicalisation of youths and the number of solo terrorist acts.
The teenager has been charged with preparing a terror attack using “flammable and explosive goods”. Prosecutors allege the planning took place between August 2024 and February this year.
More than 93 per cent of fatal terrorist attacks in the West in the past five years have been carried out by what security services call “lone actor terrorists”, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) think tank has reported.
“We believe the purpose of the preparations was to induce serious fear in the population, in the name of the Islamic State [ISIS],” said deputy chief prosecutor Henrik Olin.
This follows the fatal attack on a Manchester synagogue in October, in which two Jewish worshippers were killed, which was committed by Jihad Al Shami, a man of Syrian heritage whose name was highlighted by the inflammatory Inspire Guide magazine published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Written in both English and Arabic, the group’s official media outlet Al Malahem encouraged supporters in the West to conduct copycat attacks “in defence of Muslims”.
This maintains the publication’s policy of promoting “individual jihad” using Britain and other European countries’ “support for Israel” as a justification.
Despite Al Qaeda and its rival ISIS being on the back foot for almost a decade, they still have the power to inspire terrorist attacks.
“Radicalisation is never a done deal, as we've seen from Nazi Germany that even 80 years later the ideologies and extremism remain,” said a western security source. “Even though both Al Qaeda and ISIS are in many people’s rear-view mirror they still have the power to radicalise.”
Al Qaeda usually approaches lone wolf candidates through social media or in person before they are trusted with the “more radical material such as Inspire”, said Dr Antonio Giustozzi, of the Rusi think tank.
“Inspire is primarily intended to offer tips and advice to aspiring self-made terrorists and also seeks to motivate them. In other words, it is targeted at those already converted.”
Daniele Garofalo, who monitors Islamic extremism online, said AQAP was exploiting world events “to justify violence and expand its influence” and Inspire reflected a trend to “justify individual violence in the West”.
The terrorists also linked it to the Palestinian cause “as part of a media strategy aimed at stimulating empathy and attracting new supporters”, he wrote on X.
There is now a worrying rise in terror attacks in the West, with numbers surging by 62 per cent in 2024, to 52 incidents, up from 32 the previous year, according to the IEP. This means Sweden, Britain, the US, Germany, France, Australia and Canada now rank among the top 50 nations on the Global Terrorism Index 2025.
The IEP said it had analysed “this evolving threat, uncovering critical trends in lone wolf terrorism, its growing connection to youth radicalisation and the broader implications for security and policy”.
While western intelligence services achieved good results in combating recruitment drives for ISIS, particularly between 2014 and 2018, this meant “motivated individuals” were still looking for roots to “self radicalise and commit acts of terror”, said the western security source.
The source said for an 18-year-old, the ideological differences between Al Qaeda and ISIS would not be so important.
