Opinion article links ‘War on Terror’ to Europe’s far-right rise

An Al Jazeera opinion article has linked the post-9/11 “War on Terror” with the growing political influence of Europe’s far right, arguing that counterterrorism policies, military interventions and public rhetoric helped legitimise anti-Muslim racism.

The article, published as the September 11 attacks reach their 25th anniversary, says anti-Muslim rhetoric was already developing within parts of Europe’s far right before 2001. It identifies political movements in France, Austria and the Netherlands that had increasingly framed Islam and Muslim communities as threats to national identity or liberal democracy.

According to the analysis, the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq created a broader political environment in which Muslims were treated as potential security threats. It also cites the UK’s Prevent strategy, rendition flights, CIA detention sites and Guantanamo Bay as elements of a security framework that reinforced this suspicion.

The article describes the emergence from the mid-2000s of a transatlantic “Counter-Jihad Movement”, linking anti-Muslim organisations, activists, writers and European far-right parties. It argues that this network helped carry Islamophobic ideas into policy circles and cross-border political campaigns.

It further says far-right parties converted that mobilisation into electoral influence, first pressuring mainstream parties and later entering governing coalitions or supporting governments across Europe. In Denmark and Sweden, the article says, they became kingmakers operating outside cabinet.

The author argues that restrictions affecting Muslim religious life, surveillance of Muslim-led organisations and securitised political language have since become more widespread. The claims are presented as authorial analysis, rather than an independently verified consensus, and Al Jazeera states that the views expressed do not necessarily reflect its editorial position.