WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has formally designated four violent left-wing groups based in Europe as foreign terrorist organizations, as part of a broader effort to address extremism.
The State Department announced the designations Thursday, identifying the groups — Antifa Ost, the International Revolutionary Front, Armed Proletarian Justice, and Revolutionary Class Self Defense — as organizations that “use force against those they identify as opponents of their Marxist and anarchist projects.”
According to officials, the groups, based in Germany, Italy, and Greece, have carried out numerous attacks in recent years, including assaults, bombings of government buildings, and shootings. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott 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 designation will block these groups from accessing the U.S. financial system and allow authorities to prosecute individuals who provide support.
Antifa Ost, based in Germany and known for attacks involving hammers, conducted multiple assaults between 2018 and 2023, including during a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi march in Budapest in February 2023. Germany’s Interior Ministry warned, “It is not to be expected that this circle of individuals will turn away from violence. 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, has promoted “revolutionary armed conflict” against the government. In May 2012, two of its militants shot and injured a nuclear engineering executive, and in 2003–2004 the group carried out a letter-bomb campaign targeting European Union officials, including one bomb that detonated at the home of the European Commission president, though no one was injured.
In Greece, Armed Proletarian Justice attempted a bombing at a government building in December 2023, which was defused before detonation. Revolutionary Class Self Defense, also based in Greece, carried out bombings targeting the Ministry of Labor in February 2023 and the Hellenic Railway in April 2025, dedicating the attacks to “the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance.”
President Trump formally declared Antifa a “major” terrorist organization on September 17, six days after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, which prosecutors said was carried out by a 22-year-old allegedly radicalized online toward a leftist ideology. In the accompanying order, Trump cited Antifa’s “pattern of political violence designed to suppress lawful political activity and obstruct the rule of law.”
The order directed all relevant executive departments and agencies to “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, 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.”