IN GERMANY, AUTHORITIES ARRESTED A SUSPECTED ISIS SUPPORTER AND IN THE NETHERLANDS, VIOLENCE BROKE OUT BETWEEN PROTESTERS AND RIOT POLICE
September 17-23, 2026 | Issue 38 - EUCOM Team
Benjamin Southern-Thomas, Sofia Vilas, Cecilia Cox, Chiara Michieli
Vrindha Giritharan, Editor; Ben Gentemann, Senior Editor
Handcuffs[1]
Date: September 17, 2026
Location: Barnim District, Brandenburg State, Germany
Parties involved: Germany; German Federal Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt; German Federal Police; border guards; authorities; Christian communities; parish communities; religious communities; religious institutions; Syrian nationals seeking asylum; Iraqi nationals seeking asylum; undocumented individuals; suspected ISIS supporters; suspects
The event: Authorities arrested a suspected ISIS supporter for allegedly planning to attack a church.[2]
Analysis & Implications:
The arrest will likely increase insecurity in Christian communities, strengthening relations between parish communities and religious institutions with greater security capacity. Christian communities will likely expect more media and political attention to their security, with a roughly even chance that a limited national response will alter religious communities' confidence in state security policy. Undermined confidence will likely prompt some parish communities to reinforce security at church entry points and increase the use of surveillance technology to improve resilience to attempted attacks. Implementing heightened security measures will likely lead some communities to contact religious institutions with greater security capacity to share knowledge and best practices, strengthening local interreligious cooperation.
The arrest will likely prompt the German Federal Police to strengthen border checks to identify other suspected ISIS supporters, with a roughly even chance of diverting resources from other regions. The Minister of the Interior will likely require border guards to intensify their operations to detect suspects attempting to leave or enter Germany, increasing the frequency of randomized border controls and documentation checks on cross-border transportation. Increased scrutiny will likely restrict entry for undocumented individuals, including Syrian and Iraqi nationals seeking asylum, likely resulting in more expulsions and further border screening. Additional border security screening will likely require authorities to allocate more resources to the border region, with a roughly even chance of negatively affecting other domestic operations, such as along railways and highways.
Date: September 20, 2025
Location: The Hague, South Holland Province, Netherlands
Parties involved: Netherlands; Jetten cabinet; Dutch politicians; police; riot police; officers; civilian actors; far-right; protesters; violent protesters; malicious actors; far right activists; far-right organization Wij Zijn Het Volk activists; fringe subcultures; online communities
The event: Violence broke out between far-right protesters and riot police at a demonstration, a year after similar protests escalated into riots.[3]
Analysis & Implications:
The riots will unlikely prompt the Jetten cabinet to adopt stricter legislation on public demonstrations, unlikely to prevent protesters’ violent confrontation with police. The government will very unlikely fast-track legislative proposals to improve security at political demonstrations, such as restrictions on face coverings, likely leaving riot police with limited tools to identify and monitor violent protesters. The lack of effective measures to prevent malicious actors from instigating violence at public rallies will likely undermine the government’s condemnations, projecting an image of unwillingness to take firm action against some far-right activists’ behavior. Perceived governmental inaction will likely legitimize Wij Zijn Het Volk activists’ behavior and embolden them to further escalate violence against the police, with a roughly even chance of increasing officers’ risk exposure while policing public rallies.
Far-right extremist ideas will very likely continue to merge into a heterogeneous hybrid ideology with accelerationist, anti-migration, and white power narratives, likely resulting in the normalization of protest violence. The merging of hybrid ideologies and violent behavior will likely increase the protests' visibility in the media, likely reinforcing calls to violence as an effective mechanism that encourages previously non-violent protesters to advance violent hybrid ideologies. As these ideologies embed in regular political protests, politicians will likely attribute resulting violence to fringe groups rather than the broader far-right, likely posing a risk of law enforcement misunderstanding violent ideologies in early warning and monitoring attempts. This delay in understanding will likely narrow the window for an effective response, likely enabling far-right groups to take advantage and normalize protest violence.
[1] Training exercise, by Master Sgt. Gustavo Castillo, licensed under Public Domain (The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)/Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD/DoW endorsement.)
[2] Suspected IS supporter arrested in Brandenburg for planning attacks, Der Spiegel, September 2026, https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/barnim-is-anhaenger-in-brandenburg-wegen-anschlagsplanung-festgenommen-a-dd255ab5-0608-4ee3-a065-5f3beaedbc0c (translated by Google)
[3] Dutch police disperse violent far-right protest in The Hague, DW, September 2026,
