Protection from terrorism is one of the fundamental issues of Croatia’s national security, but also the security of our allies and partners.

SOA is, together with other components of the Croatian security-intelligence system, responsible for the prevention and combating terrorism in Croatia. This includes preventing possible terrorist attacks aimed at Croatia and its citizens, but also activities aimed at preventing Croatian citizens from carrying out or assisting in a terrorist attack. Therefore, we investigate the activities of individuals or groups that finance, plan, support, prepare or conduct terrorist activities.

In addition, SOA works on preventing Croatia's territory from being used as a base for recruitment, logistical support, financing or planning terrorist activities and attacks. For instance, Croatia and its neighboring countries might provoke interest of terrorist groups due to the weapons, explosives and military equipment left over from the Homeland War.

Preventing and combating terrorism is a very complex task. The fact that terrorist attacks happen even in the most developed countries, despite use of state-of-the art methods, speaks much about how demanding this challenge actually is. It is made additionally difficult by the phenomenon of the so-called „lone wolfs“, i.e. individuals who are capable and ready to carry out terrorist attacks, while being very difficult to detect as they are not tied to terrorist groups, do not announce their plans, hold no criminal records etc. These cases highlight the importance of our cooperation with other state bodies on recognizing the individuals who are going through a radicalization process and might express the potential and intention to carry out a terrorist attack.

Today's terrorism is not limited by national borders, and in the global world counterterrorist activities have a prominent international dimension which includes cooperation with partner services on a daily basis.