People attend the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day) rally in London, Britain, March 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy

Iranian actors, proxy groups, and criminal networks tied to Tehran have emerged as a growing terrorist threat to Jewish communities and Western interests across Europe, according to a new report from the European Union’s police agency, amid fears that escalating Middle East tensions could fuel retaliatory strikes.

Published on Tuesday by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), the European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2026 documented 45 terrorist attacks across 10 EU member states in 2025 and warned that the overall terrorism threat “remains high.” Most of that activity, the report found, was driven by lone actors and small extremist cells, with many suspects inspired by Islamic State or al-Qaeda propaganda.

Extremist groups increasingly invoked antisemitic rhetoric to justify violence, the report said, with Jewish communities, individuals, and institutions repeatedly emerging as targets of terrorist threats and attacks.

Of the 45 attacks recorded across the 10 member states, 22 were successfully carried out, resulting in six deaths, while authorities foiled 20 plots and three attacks failed. The tally marked a decline from 2024, when 58 attacks were documented across 14 member states, including 34 that were completed.

Europol cautioned that mounting pressure on Iran and its network of proxies could translate into more direct threats inside the EU. While these groups have historically used the bloc mainly for fundraising and logistical support, the report warned, some may increasingly consider attacks on Jewish, Israeli, or other targets across the continent. The EU formally designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — the Iranian regime’s elite military force, which oversees Tehran’s foreign operations and coordinates its proxy groups — as a terrorist organization in February. The warnings follow the onset of the US-Israeli war against Iran, which began in late February and has coincided with a rise in attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe.

Among the attacks recorded last year, stabbings and bombings were the most common methods, accounting for 15 and 11 incidents respectively, followed by seven arson attacks, five shootings, two cases of property damage, and one vehicle-ramming attack.

Jihadist terrorism accounted for the largest share of attacks — 24, or roughly half of the total — while five were classified as right-wing terrorism and 12 were attributed to left-wing or anarchist groups.

The report also flagged the growing presence of nihilistic violent extremism, an emerging threat fueled by decentralized online communities that glorify violence despite lacking a clear ideological framework or organized objectives.

As online platforms have grown more influential, the internet and social media have been used to spread extremist propaganda and connect individuals with radical ideologies, the report noted, with terrorist content appearing across platforms of all sizes and often amplified by algorithms that expand its reach among vulnerable audiences, including young people.

European authorities recorded a rise in terrorism-related arrests last year, detaining 486 suspects, compared with 449 in 2024 and 426 in 2023. Those figures do not capture the larger number of ongoing investigations, the report said. It separately documented arrests of EU-based individuals suspected of seeking to join Iran’s proxy networks.

Since the war began, European governments have tightened domestic security amid mounting fears that Iran could retaliate by activating proxy networks across the continent against Israeli and Western interests.

Even with heightened intelligence monitoring, Europe has seen a string of attacks on Jewish and Israeli institutions, several of them claimed by Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, a newly emerged Iran-linked group. Since surfacing in early March, it has claimed at least 15 attacks on Jewish and Western targets across the continent, including incidents in the UK, Germany, North Macedonia, and the Netherlands, with several concentrated in London.