State Department designates 4 groups in Europe affiliated with Antifa as foreign terrorist orgs

The State Department on Thursday announced that it has designated four groups in Europe affiliated with Antifa as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specifically Designated Global Terrorists.

This is the first instance in which the U.S. government has designated Antifa-linked groups as foreign terrorist organizations, after previously giving them the label of domestic terrorists, Fox News reported.

There are four Antifa groups in Europe — one in Germany, two in Greece, and one in Italy — which have all been accused of organizing or carrying out bombings, shootings, and other politically motivated attacks.

The FTO and SDGT designations require U.S. financial institutions to freeze their assets and ban their members' entry into the U.S. The designations also allow the U.S. to criminally prosecute those under its jurisdiction who offer material support to FTOs or conspire to offer such support.

A group called Antifa Ost has been linked to attacks between 2018 and 2023 in Germany, with seven individuals with ties to the group charged by German prosecutors.

In September, the Hungarian government designated Antifa Ost as terrorists after nine members allegedly assaulted people with hammers, batons, and pepper spray in Budapest back in 2023.

The International Revolutionary Front, also called the Informal Anarchist Federation, is a coalition of groups based in Italy that endorse revolutionary armed conflict against the state. The coalition has been linked to dozens of violent and criminal incidents over the past 20 years: letter bombs to government and industrial targets, small explosive devices, and shootings, including the 2012 shooting of a nuclear engineering executive.

Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self Defense are based in Greece, and have carried out attacks on government buildings throughout the country, most recently attacking the Hellenic Railway headquarters in a bombing in April. Revolutionary Class Self Defense dedicated the bombing to "the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance."

State Department principal deputy spokesperson Tommy Piggot said in a statement, "The anarchists, Marxists, and violent extremists of Antifa have waged a terror campaign in the United States and across the Western world for decades, carrying out bombings, beatings, shootings, and riots in service of their extreme agenda."

"The State Department is committed to identifying and dismantling these terror networks that conspire to ruthlessly suppress the will of the people and violently undermine the very foundations of the United States and Western Civilization."

Missouri GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt had written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, advocating for the designation.

"I’m grateful to Secretary Rubio and the Trump administration for working with me on this critical issue — holding these radical groups who enable, fund and support political violence in the United States and across the world accountable," Schmitt said.