A new study by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) places anti-Semitism at the center of extremist violent mobilization – and calls for a radical rethink in how we deal with it. The study, titled "The Role of Antisemitism in the Mobilization to Violence by Extremist and Terrorist Actors," examines developments in France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the United States. Its central thesis: antisemitism is not a mere byproduct of extremist ideologies—it is a strategic tool for radicalization, recruitment, and the legitimization of violence. All ideological camps are affected: right-wing extremist, Islamist, left-wing extremist, and pro-Palestinian groups

CEP Strategic Advisor Liam Duffy writes: While the official counter-terror lexicon of most states labels such outbursts as ‘Islamist terrorism’, what authorities usually mean by that is the jihadist violence of the likes of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS). Among the steady trickle of stabbings or vehicle-ramming attacks, there are indeed those either claimed by IS – such as the 2024 Solingen mass stabbings – or those attributed to IS by the perpetrator, such as the vehicle ramming in New Orleans which ushered in the New Year. There are also those where the mental health of the attacker does indeed seem the most pertinent factor.

The soldier's social media activity also includes participation in Nazi-era WWII reenactments, according to public posts reviewed by experts consulted by The Guardian. "The TikTok account affiliated with the group includes a clear statement supporting accelerationism and advises joining the group to be linked up with other individuals to exploit 'collapse'," said Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst with the Counter Extremism Project.

Hashem Abedi, 28, inflicted "life-threatening" injuries on the officers at HMP Frankland in County Durham on Saturday. He is being held at the jail for his role in the deadly bombings eight years ago and his latest attack has outraged many, including former prison governor Ian Acheson. Mr Acheson, who carried out a review of Islamist extremism in jails in 2016, called Abedi "the second most dangerous prisoner in the UK" and claimed he should be left in total isolation because "we don’t have the death penalty". "The only other alternative is extreme custody - if it turns him mad then so be it," he told the Times.

The threat of violence has never been far away from crowded jails but the problem is now endemic. The rehabilitation of offenders cannot happen within an unstable system. As the former prison governor Ian Acheson says: “Broken staff cannot help fix broken people.” A key factor in the crisis of authority in UK jails has been the rise of Islamist gangs after the jailing of radicals for terrorist attacks and plots. Almost 16,000 inmates in England and Wales now ­identify themselves as Muslim after a 190 per cent rise in their numbers in 22 years due to sentencing and religious conversions behind bars. Almost a decade ago, Mr Acheson warned the Commons justice committee that “all the ingredients for radicalisation” in jails were present. Islamist gang culture, sometimes expressed in loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood, mixes with ordinary criminality. Conversion to Islam behind bars is driven partly by the protection offered by gang membership in increasingly anarchic settings.

Ian Acheson, a former prison governor who carried out a review of Islamist extremism in jails in 2016, described Hashem Abedi, 28, as the second most dangerous prisoner in the UK after the serial killer Robert Maudsley.

When I’m speaking to people who know nothing about prisons, I often start with an entertaining mind game.I ask people to imagine that they are on the board of a company with a turnover north of £6bn a year. The company makes widgets. The widgets have a failure rate of 56 per cent after 12 months. What would you do? ‘Sack the management’ is the predictable and not unreasonable cry in response. Well you can’t, I tell them. I’ve just described His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. The widgets are the offenders, and the failure rate is the number of male adults who reoffend after a year or less inside. Why this organisation fails so badly would take a whole book. So I wrote one. But I want to focus on one issue that is so scandalously bad and so morally awful that there is only one public sector organisation that could conceal it behind the high walls, literal and figurative of our collapsing prisons: staff sickness.

The threat of violence has never been far away from crowded jails but the problem is now endemic. The rehabilitation of offenders cannot happen within an unstable system. As the former prison governor Ian Acheson says: “Broken staff cannot help fix broken people.” A key factor in the crisis of authority in UK jails has been the rise of Islamist gangs after the jailing of radicals for terrorist attacks and plots. Almost 16,000 inmates in England and Wales now ­identify themselves as Muslim after a 190 per cent rise in their numbers in 22 years due to sentencing and religious conversions behind bars. Almost a decade ago, Mr Acheson warned the Commons justice committee that “all the ingredients for radicalisation” in jails were present. Islamist gang culture, sometimes expressed in loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood, mixes with ordinary criminality. Conversion to Islam behind bars is driven partly by the protection offered by gang membership in increasingly anarchic settings.

Former prison governor Ian Acheson said Abedi’s past showed he posed such a danger he should have been held under tighter security conditions than the ones at the separation unit. Mr Acheson also warned that the assault “moves us closer to the day when a prison officer will be murdered on duty by a terrorist”, adding that it is only a matter of time. The Justice Secretary Ms Mahmood said at the weekend: “I am appalled by the attack of three brave officers.”

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: How do you break the rule of law inside our jails? You could do worse than try to murder a prison officer on duty, which by all accounts nearly came to pass yesterday. The terrorist Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, reportedly came within seconds of doing so in a frenzied attack on prison officers in the separation unit of HMP Frankland. Three were sent to hospital, seriously injured by a combination of stab wounds and burns from hot oil. I know a thing or two about separation units. I called for their creation when I did an independent review of Islamist extremism in our prisons, as ordered by the editor of this magazine, who was then Justice Secretary. I made almost 70 recommendations to fix serious and systemic failings in the prison service when it came to dealing with the cancer of violent extremism.