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EUROPOL: Minors increasingly targeted by terrorist propaganda

Politiko 2025-06-03 15:04:56

EUROPOL: Minors increasingly targeted by terrorist propaganda

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine and the United Kingdom participated in this action.

This action by the European Union's police agency comes just weeks after EUROPOL created a new operational task force dedicated to combating the increasingly widespread practice of recruiting minors into organized and serious crime.

"Terrorist groups are increasingly targeting young people, exploiting their vulnerabilities, but also their ability to use digital tools, to spread violent and extremist ideas," said EUROPOL Executive Director Catherine De Bolle.

"Protecting children from exploitation by criminal networks is one of our top priorities," she stressed.

The report mentions worrying new tactics by extremist groups, which use artificial intelligence (AI) to create texts, images and videos in order to reach new audiences.

According to EUROPOL, propaganda often includes: combinations of images of children with extremist messages, content in the form of memes and short videos with elements from computer games, glorification of minors who have participated in terrorist attacks - where boys are presented as "fighters" and "the hope of society", while girls are presented as supporters of future fighters.

Particularly worrying is the trend of using the victim narrative, where images of children injured or killed in war zones encourage emotional identification and a sense of the need for revenge, EUROPOL emphasizes.

The European Counter-Terrorism Centre within EUROPOL (ECTC) continues to support member states in preventing and investigating the spread of terrorist content online, with the aim of creating a safer digital environment for EU citizens, the statement said, among other things./ REL

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