In several unsettling attacks across Europe, lone assailants have singled out children in especially shocking acts of violence. Consider last week’s knife assault in Bavaria or the horrifying mass stabbing in Southport for which the killer has just been sentenced. Each time, authorities rush to dismiss terrorism or cite “psychological problems.” But far from having nothing to do with terrorism, these attacks suggest the emergence of a new kind of nihilistic terror, one which, although different from the ideological jihadism we might be used to, draws on a similar script. These killers express the hatred and contempt they have towards contemporary Western societies in acts of barbarism specifically targeted at children. Their choice of children is not incidental.
It is hard not to situate these attacks within a broader pattern of terrorists focusing on children. The Manchester Arena bombing of 2017, where Islamist attackers targeted an Ariana Grande concert, killed 22 people, including ten under 20, with 79 children hospitalized. It fits a historical pattern, from the Beslan school massacre in Russian North Ossetia—where Chechen Islamists took hundreds of children hostage—to the October 2023 Hamas pogrom in Israel, where children were kidnapped and killed.
However, the most recent wave of attacks in the West—carried out by lone individuals—does not neatly align with the highly organized, ideologically driven terrorism seen in Manchester or Beslan. Instead, we should understand the attacks as representing a new kind of nihilistic terror.
A growing wave of nihilistic attacks
Though scarce, the details of last week’s attack in Germany are hard to grasp in any other fashion. On Wednesday 22 January, in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, an Afghan asylum seeker began following a group of creche children who were out on a supervised nature hike. After a short while, he attacked the group with a knife. Police reported a number of injuries, and, most horrifyingly, the death of a 2-year-old boy and a man, apparently a bystander who intervened. As is now the norm, German authorities rushed to “rule out terrorism with absolute certainty” and insisted the individual had “psychological problems.”
Germany is in the grip of something of an epidemic of such incidents. In May, a policeman was killed by an Afghan man after intervening in a knife attack. In August, three people were killed by a Syrian man in Solingen, and in December, a Saudi Arabian national mowed down five people and injured over 200 in an attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg.
But perhaps the most chilling parallel is the mass stabbing in Southport Britain, carried out late last year by Axel Rudakubana, a second-generation Rwandan immigrant who has just been sentenced to 52 years in prison. The three children he murdered were six, seven, and nine years old. A further nine young girls received hospital treatment, six of them critically. The barbarity of the attack—parents have asked not to share the details of the degree of mutilation—is almost beyond words. He specifically targeted children, attacking a group attending a Taylor Swift dance class. He told police, “It’s a good thing those children are dead. I’m so glad, I’m so happy.”
Authorities in Britain also insisted the attack had nothing to do with terrorism, despite his possession of an Al-Qaeda training manual, the poison ricin, and a history of referrals to the UK’s anti-extremism programme, Prevent. There have also been reports of his interest in “white genocide” and his cultivation of critical race theory-style grievances against British people.
Likewise, in June 2023, a Syrian man with refugee status in Sweden attempted to massacre children in a park in Annecy, France. He stabbed four children, between 22 months and three years old. Police again claimed he had no terrorist intent.
These are not straightforwardly jihadist attacks. But neither can they be dismissed as random acts of violence. We need a new frame of reference to understand them.
A different kind of terror
A highly perceptive article by Chris Bayliss in The Critic offers a lens for these attacks. Bayliss argues that such perpetrators appear to be “individuals who arrived or whose parents arrived … largely for want of anywhere else in the world to be.” Their defining trait is total alienation from the societies in which they live:
Rather than fanaticism or zealotry, our new generation of violent attackers seem to be displaying signs of nihilism. In fact, there is a genuine question as to the extent to which this kind of activity can even be described as ‘terrorism’ … They are not driving cars into crowds of Christmas shoppers to unite the Ummah … Rather, it is the ultimate expression of contempt and resentment for a society they do not understand, and feel no connection to.
Bayliss might be too quick to question the language of terrorism. One reason not to is that our authorities seem determined to downplay these incidents as random acts or as social services failures. But the nihilism he identifies does help explain the fixation on children. Children represent a society’s future, embodying its innocence and vitality. To alienated individuals consumed by contempt, children may be the most potent and shocking targets—a blow aimed precisely at what their host society values most.
This repeated focus on events tied to young people—Ariana Grande concerts, Taylor Swift dance classes—suggests these are not random choices, but deeply resonant symbols. Could anything represent more precisely the so-called “decadence” of the West than dancing young girls?
Hatred of the West, even without a grand plan
This is an isolated, resentful, and often entitled terrorism. Rudakubana seems to have been obsessed with the idea of ethnic cleansing, harbouring grievances about supposed “racist” treatment in Britain. The Annecy attacker was reportedly motivated by anger that his asylum application had been refused. Their terror ultimately grows out of hatred for a society they neither belong to nor understand. In that sense, their actions borrow from the ideological script of jihadism—a loathing of Western societies—even if they lack a coherent or explicitly Islamist political program.
For these individuals, destroying children is a grotesque way to express their alienation, disdain, and disgust for the societies around them. The cultivation of a sense of terroristic grievance encourages them to lash out at the most defenceless but also the most outrageous targets they can find. They share the ideological terrorists’ disdain for the West, if not their level of organization. We cannot seriously pretend there is no link. Instead, they play out in nihilistic fashion the script provided by radical Islamism.
To address this growing wave of nihilistic terror, we must face the anti-Westernism cultivated by Islamists and their apologists. Securing society will demand more than the long-overdue tightening of borders; it will require a political reckoning with the hatred that fuels these attacks.
Why Do These Terrorists Target Our Children?
A card reading “Aschaffenburg stands together” lays at a makeshift memorial for the victims of a knife attack, on January 24th , 2025 in Aschaffenburg, western Germany.
Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP
In several unsettling attacks across Europe, lone assailants have singled out children in especially shocking acts of violence. Consider last week’s knife assault in Bavaria or the horrifying mass stabbing in Southport for which the killer has just been sentenced. Each time, authorities rush to dismiss terrorism or cite “psychological problems.” But far from having nothing to do with terrorism, these attacks suggest the emergence of a new kind of nihilistic terror, one which, although different from the ideological jihadism we might be used to, draws on a similar script. These killers express the hatred and contempt they have towards contemporary Western societies in acts of barbarism specifically targeted at children. Their choice of children is not incidental.
It is hard not to situate these attacks within a broader pattern of terrorists focusing on children. The Manchester Arena bombing of 2017, where Islamist attackers targeted an Ariana Grande concert, killed 22 people, including ten under 20, with 79 children hospitalized. It fits a historical pattern, from the Beslan school massacre in Russian North Ossetia—where Chechen Islamists took hundreds of children hostage—to the October 2023 Hamas pogrom in Israel, where children were kidnapped and killed.
However, the most recent wave of attacks in the West—carried out by lone individuals—does not neatly align with the highly organized, ideologically driven terrorism seen in Manchester or Beslan. Instead, we should understand the attacks as representing a new kind of nihilistic terror.
A growing wave of nihilistic attacks
Though scarce, the details of last week’s attack in Germany are hard to grasp in any other fashion. On Wednesday 22 January, in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, an Afghan asylum seeker began following a group of creche children who were out on a supervised nature hike. After a short while, he attacked the group with a knife. Police reported a number of injuries, and, most horrifyingly, the death of a 2-year-old boy and a man, apparently a bystander who intervened. As is now the norm, German authorities rushed to “rule out terrorism with absolute certainty” and insisted the individual had “psychological problems.”
Germany is in the grip of something of an epidemic of such incidents. In May, a policeman was killed by an Afghan man after intervening in a knife attack. In August, three people were killed by a Syrian man in Solingen, and in December, a Saudi Arabian national mowed down five people and injured over 200 in an attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg.
But perhaps the most chilling parallel is the mass stabbing in Southport Britain, carried out late last year by Axel Rudakubana, a second-generation Rwandan immigrant who has just been sentenced to 52 years in prison. The three children he murdered were six, seven, and nine years old. A further nine young girls received hospital treatment, six of them critically. The barbarity of the attack—parents have asked not to share the details of the degree of mutilation—is almost beyond words. He specifically targeted children, attacking a group attending a Taylor Swift dance class. He told police, “It’s a good thing those children are dead. I’m so glad, I’m so happy.”
Authorities in Britain also insisted the attack had nothing to do with terrorism, despite his possession of an Al-Qaeda training manual, the poison ricin, and a history of referrals to the UK’s anti-extremism programme, Prevent. There have also been reports of his interest in “white genocide” and his cultivation of critical race theory-style grievances against British people.
Likewise, in June 2023, a Syrian man with refugee status in Sweden attempted to massacre children in a park in Annecy, France. He stabbed four children, between 22 months and three years old. Police again claimed he had no terrorist intent.
These are not straightforwardly jihadist attacks. But neither can they be dismissed as random acts of violence. We need a new frame of reference to understand them.
A different kind of terror
A highly perceptive article by Chris Bayliss in The Critic offers a lens for these attacks. Bayliss argues that such perpetrators appear to be “individuals who arrived or whose parents arrived … largely for want of anywhere else in the world to be.” Their defining trait is total alienation from the societies in which they live:
Bayliss might be too quick to question the language of terrorism. One reason not to is that our authorities seem determined to downplay these incidents as random acts or as social services failures. But the nihilism he identifies does help explain the fixation on children. Children represent a society’s future, embodying its innocence and vitality. To alienated individuals consumed by contempt, children may be the most potent and shocking targets—a blow aimed precisely at what their host society values most.
This repeated focus on events tied to young people—Ariana Grande concerts, Taylor Swift dance classes—suggests these are not random choices, but deeply resonant symbols. Could anything represent more precisely the so-called “decadence” of the West than dancing young girls?
Hatred of the West, even without a grand plan
This is an isolated, resentful, and often entitled terrorism. Rudakubana seems to have been obsessed with the idea of ethnic cleansing, harbouring grievances about supposed “racist” treatment in Britain. The Annecy attacker was reportedly motivated by anger that his asylum application had been refused. Their terror ultimately grows out of hatred for a society they neither belong to nor understand. In that sense, their actions borrow from the ideological script of jihadism—a loathing of Western societies—even if they lack a coherent or explicitly Islamist political program.
For these individuals, destroying children is a grotesque way to express their alienation, disdain, and disgust for the societies around them. The cultivation of a sense of terroristic grievance encourages them to lash out at the most defenceless but also the most outrageous targets they can find. They share the ideological terrorists’ disdain for the West, if not their level of organization. We cannot seriously pretend there is no link. Instead, they play out in nihilistic fashion the script provided by radical Islamism.
To address this growing wave of nihilistic terror, we must face the anti-Westernism cultivated by Islamists and their apologists. Securing society will demand more than the long-overdue tightening of borders; it will require a political reckoning with the hatred that fuels these attacks.
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