The U.S. State Department has designated four Europe-based Antifa-linked groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), marking the first time Antifa-affiliated organizations have faced such international sanctions. The move places them alongside groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah.
The groups — Antifa Ost in Germany, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI) in Italy, and Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense in Greece — have been linked to bombings, shootings, and other politically motivated attacks over the past decade.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio observed that the groups adhere to “revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideologies, including anti-Americanism, ‘anti-capitalism,’ and anti-Christianity,” which they allegedly use to justify violent actions domestically and abroad. The designations block any assets the groups hold in the U.S. and prohibit Americans from providing them with material support.
Antifa Ost reportedly attacked individuals it identified as “fascists” in Germany between 2018 and 2023 and was involved in assaults in Budapest, Hungary. Hungary previously designated the group as terrorists after members allegedly attacked people with hammers, batons, and pepper spray.
The Italy-based FAI/FRI has claimed responsibility for threats and attacks on government and industrial targets, including courthouse bombings and a 2012 shooting of a nuclear engineering executive. In Greece, Revolutionary Class Self-Defense carried out bombings of government buildings, dedicating one attack to “the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance,” while Armed Proletarian Justice reportedly planted a bomb near Greek riot police headquarters in 2023.
The designations expand President Donald Trump’s domestic Antifa order to the international stage. Principal Deputy State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot emphasized that “the anarchists, Marxists, and violent extremists of Antifa have waged a terror campaign in the United States and across the Western world for decades.”
