WASHINGTON — The Trump administration formally designated four violent left-wing groups based in Europe as foreign terrorist organizations as part of a broad crackdown on extremism.
The State Department announced the intended designation on Thursday, saying the Antifa groups — Antifa Ost, the International Revolutionary Front, Armed Proletarian Justice, and Revolutionary Class Self Defense — “use force against those they identify as opponents of their Marxist and anarchist projects.”
The thugs from Germany, Italy and Greece have carried out dozens of attacks in Europe over recent years — including assaults, bombings of government buildings and shootings.
Trump administration is moving to designate four anti-fascist groups as either foreign terrorist organizations or specifically designated global terrorists based in Europe. Pool/ABACA/Shutterstock
“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,” said State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott in a statement.
“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.”
The designation will also bar the radicals from accessing the US financial system and prosecute those that support them, officials added.
Antifa Ost (East), based in Germany and known for using hammers in assaults, conducted several attacks between 2018 and 2023 — including in a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi march in February 2023 in Budapest.
“It is not to be expected that this circle of individuals will turn away from violence,” a report from Germany’s Interior Ministry stated about the group. “It is rather to be feared that, over time, a further radicalisation will take place.”
The Italy-based International Revolutionary Front, also known as the Informal Anarchist Federation, promotes “revolutionary armed conflict” against its government, State Department officials also noted.
These Europe-based groups are either designated as foreign terrorist organizations or specifically designated global terrorists as part of a broad crackdown on extremism. AFP via Getty Images
Two of its militants kneecapped a nuclear engineering executive in a May 2012 shooting, according to The Guardian.
West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center in a March 2014 report also noted the Informal Anarchist Federation carried out a letter-bomb campaign against European Union officials between December 2003 and January 2004.
Most of the dangerous messages were intercepted but one exploded in the hands of the European Commission’s president at his home in Bologna, though he was uninjured.
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In Greece, Armed Proletarian Justice also conducted a failed bombing attack against a government building in December 2023 as part of an anarchist and anti-capitalist campaign.
The bomb was discovered and defused before detonation.
The groups from Germany, Italy and Greece have carried out dozens of attacks in Europe over recent years — including assaults, bombings of government buildings and shootings. Soli Antifa Ost
Revolutionary Class Self Defense, also based in Greece, carried out bombings of the Greek Ministry of Labor in February 2023 and the Hellenic Railway in April 2025.
Those attacks were dedicated to “the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance.”
President Trump declared Antifa a “major” terrorist organization on Sept. 17, six days after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, allegedly by an 22-year-old gunman who had been “radicalized” online toward a “leftist ideology,” according to state prosecutors.
In a subsequent order, Trump cited Antifa’s “pattern of political violence designed to suppress lawful political activity and obstruct the rule of law.”
“All relevant executive departments and agencies shall utilize all applicable authorities to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations — especially those involving terrorist actions — conducted by Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa,” the order stated, “or for which Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa provided material support, including necessary investigatory and prosecutorial actions against those who fund such operations.”