Brigatist folly had not yet set out in Italy when in Italy. In his Padua he has dealt with the students of the bad teacher for years Toni Negri. He had to turn off the boils of the antagonists led by Luca Casarininot yet latchion Laic. But now he must measure himself with completely new emergencies. Lucio Pifferi59 years old, for 12 years manager of Digos Patavina and for 9 of that of Florence, he is the head of Italian anti -terrorism. While observing the Roman aqueducts that can be seen from the window of his office cites with nonchalance the eighteenth -century etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, but then returns to his daily reality. Made of dossier on the jihadist threat or on the risk of the moment, the nebula of the juvenile reversal, where proselytism is spreading through the gaming platforms. Today this is the most elusive enemy: post -ideological or ideologically transversal terrorists. AND Piffercentral director of the Prevention Police and President of the House (Strategic Anti -terrorism analysis committee, the table that brings together police forces and 007) knows it well.
What is the emergency that little is talked about?
«The violence perpetrated by minors. They are increasingly involved in particularly aggressive actions, not infrequently motivated by ideological extremism. Between 2022 and 2024 a third of the people involved in judicial police operations for crimes of terrorism, racial, ethnic or religious hatred was a minor. Guys who do not always come from situations of family unease. I give you some number: out of 53 recipients of judicial measures for the fight against jihadism 9 were minors, 39 out of 92 as part of the operations concerning the far right “.
What do these young people have in common?
«The attraction for violent and truculent images,” gore “as they say now, and ideological fluidity, characterized by the merger of typical messages of the so -called supremist and accelerationist right (that is, which aims at a rapid end of the current system to replace it with an ethno-state based on the purity of the breed, editor’s note) and jihadism, but also from the simple interest in weapons and guerrilla, in fact extensions of video games. The desire to put violence into practice often arises on gaming platforms, where they are achieved by propaganda, especially supremist and jihadist who spreads through the comment chats to the games ».
But how can they mix jihadism and suprematism? The whites «Wasp» or Caucasici what do they have to do with the Islamic Holy War?
«To understand what is going on we cannot stop at the categories with which we have interpreted reality to date. Think of the case of Solomon Henderson, an Afro-American seventeen year old who opened fire in Nashville in the canteen of his school. Before committing suicide, he shared a manifesto on social media in which he explained his adhesion to supremist and accelerationist ideology. In addition to the classic derogatory terms aimed at cultures and races or to LGBTQI+ groups it contained words and expressions that the Z generation uses to describe its moods, such as “rekt” that indicates someone who feels destroyed or annihilated, “Gyatt”, a term that describes a state of excitement and fun or “halogers”, used to define those who are animated by exaggerated levels of hatred. In short, we move from ideology to introspection ».
All closed inside your bedroom …
“It’s like that. Unfortunately we cannot understand how much the boys are influenced by the virtual world. A reality in which our children are looking for increasingly stronger emotions coming to an addiction to aggression ».
Is there the fascination for violence?
«It is an emotional condition that oscillates between boredom, the search for excitement and morbid curiosity for taboo content. These are feelings that are grafted on a relational imagination and on non -rare psychological disorders. Violence is documented by the use of derister or contemptuous epithets, by the continuous research of material gorefrom the predilection for certain musical genres and combat sports, from the interest in conspiracy theories and occultism “.
To unite these worlds there is also anti -Semitism …
“Exactly. And it is in the phase of great expansion following the bloody conflict in the Middle East. Hate for Jews is a thread that combines opposite extremism and jihadism “.
Hate preachers use memes and videos that exceed linguistic barriers …
“There is a character, Soyjak, with eyeglasses, beard shakes the wide open mouth that represents the non -masculine men. The most disturbing thing is the animated series Skibidi toiletdefined by fanatics as “Aryan” and understandable only by those who have a high intellectual quotient ».
What exactly is it?
«The first episode was released on YouTube on February 7, 2023 and lasted 11 seconds. The series has a bizarre and disturbing aesthetic. Skibids toilet are the singers heads that come out of a toilet and want to conquer the world. They are part of a multicultural society and oppose the so -called “alliance”, made up of humanoid characters with cameras and screens instead of the heads, or to what we could define the controllers. Young people, missing an explicit sense, can fill those images with content. The author is Georgian and for someone the series can be interpreted as an allegory of the war in Ukraine, but also as a sort of resistance to the domination of surveillance technologies “.
How do adults block the messages conveyed by this type of entertainment, apparently harmless, that someone called “post -ironic nihilism of humor”?
«It is not easy, especially with the tools that normal parents have. The violent child mobilization, with discriminatory, ideological-war motivations or even only in ways that emulate terrorist actions is difficult to intercept ».
With what consequences?
“In 2024, in Europe, 4 terrorist attacks carried out by minors under a total of 26 (18 of Jihadist matrix and 8 of far right) occurred, which also mortally injured the objectives”.
How much is the phenomenon of violent minors?
“A recent study on youth deviance has shown that for murder crimes, injuries, sexual violence and robberies, between 2021 and 2022 the under 13 involved increased by 160% compared to 2007-2009, while the number of boys between 14 and 17 years of age grew by 54%. The average age for commission of the first crime fell dizzyingly. Half of minors surveyed has turned it within 15 years. “
In Italy there were two cases that hit public opinion. A seventeen year old was arrested in Bergamo …
«That boy has an Italian father and an African mother. At school it was a model student: a perfect goal for the proselytism of the Islamic State that does not turn to everyone, but Punta Target precisely capable of developing propaganda and then spreading it ».
The second episode concerns the fifteen -year -old from Bolzano of Pachistani origins who had become supremist …
«In reality he had initially been fascinated by this ideology and then he had turned on Islamic jihadism. He was planning a school shooting, a shooting at school ».
Let’s go back to the points of contact between suprematism and jihadism …
«The common project is to build a new company with a hierarchy based on very marked racial criteria, but also more ordered at a moral level, in which the roles are defined in a clear way. A society, so to speak, traditional that can only be established after the world has passed from a destructive chaos phase. A general mess that must prelude to a moment of law and order ».
It’s not that these guys are more than anything else suffering from mental disorders …
«Certainly propaganda acts on immature subjects and without critical spirit, a typical condition of the personality maturation phase. These young people have no perception of the definitiveness of their gestures. They turn off the PC, go out and hit, as if they were inside a video game. I repeat: gaming platforms are increasingly a vehicle for the spread of radicalization ».
She first spoke of emulation. How much does this aspect affect the intensity of the threat?
“Much, as evidenced by the massacre of Magdeburg of 20 December last, where the attacker was a fifty -year -old Saudi” enemy of the jihad “who launched himself on the crowd like a suicide bomber to punish the West, he said, too laxist with extremism. But also the German citizen with mental problems that in March, in Mannheim, overwhelmed dozens of passers -by with the car did not have the ideological profile of the terrorist … ».
How do you prevent all these threats, including the most random ones?
“With the unity of intent between police, judiciary and politics, of which Italy is an example. Sometimes we discover the danger by investigating adults, other times thanks to the intelligence activity of the secret services. The police have agents who work undercover and monitor the children’s chats. In some cases it is essential to intervene with the utmost speed to prevent words from the facts, on other occasions we can make more in -depth investigations. The prosecutors for minors are very sensitive to the theme and there is great interlocution between us and them ».
The speed of reaction is essential to avoid trouble …
«All the signs of danger must be addressed immediately, with every possible tool: administrative, judicial, with immediate expulsions. For us, the possibility of repatriation by provision of the Minister of the Interior in the event of danger of the order and the security of the state is a formidable means of formidable prevention. We can also count on the collaboration and great sensitivity to the theme of the National Anti -Terrorism Directorate and the District Prosecutors ».
Against the proliferation of online propaganda what “weapons” does the police have?
“The development of technological tools, such as network analysis programs and identifying the passage of violent content”.
Can the Maranza community, young Italians of Maghrebin origin, be a tank of future terrorists?
«I see them more as a phenomenon of common crime, which adopts languages and codes more in the ultrà world and trapper than of the jihad. Their purpose is to exhibit luxury assets, providing them with the arrogance of the abuse. The concern remains for an alarming phenomenon ».
And the left extremism?
«At this moment it is less alarming than in the past. He mainly represents a problem in public order for some events ».
So the red brigatism season is archived forever?
«Never say never. However, today the Marxist-Leninist’s subversion, with his dusty language, attracts young people. These gentlemen use watchwords and documents that work less in an era where communication must be fast and hit as a punch “.
And the anarchoinsurrealists with their mocking press releases, like those of the informal anarchist federation?
«They are certainly more technological. They make a lot of propaganda online, but their texts are also “heavy” and do not pierce the network. Also because they hardly spread images of violence, as other subversive groups do. Certainly the antimilitarism, the possible return to nuclear power, the so -called repression of which the security decrees would be brought to the anarchist narration favorable topics and it cannot be excluded that someone thinks to accompany their social criticisms again with some striking gesture, as Alfredo Cosenza has already done. It is essential not to lower the guard ».
Are there the anarchists behind the stake of Tesla electric cars in Rome and for which Elon Musk spoke of terrorism?
«Technically it resembles their attack, but at the moment the claim is missing, which usually always comes. For example, at the Faculty of Sciences of Narni investigations it was issued before they discovered their device, fortunately unexploded ».
Musk’s spokesman in Italy, Andrea Stroppa, ended up under escort …
“We cannot and we must not underestimate any signal.”
