State Department designates four European groups linked to Antifa as terrorists

The State Department will designate four Antifa-linked groups operating in Europe as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) – placing them among ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah – Fox News Digital has learned.

The move marks the first time the U.S. government has applied foreign terrorist designation to Antifa-linked groups, extending President Donald Trump’s previous directive on domestic terrorism to an international scale.

The four Antifa-aligned cells active in Europe – in Germany, Italy and Greece – are accused of organizing or carrying out bombings, shootings and other politically motivated attacks.

This designation requires U.S. financial institutions to freeze the assets of FTOs and SDGTs and bar group members from entering the United States. It allows the United States to criminally prosecute those within U.S. jurisdiction who provide material support to FTOs or conspire to provide such support.

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Antifa protesters take to the streets of Berlin, Germany. (Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images)

One of these groups – Antifa Ost – is a left-wing cell associated with attacks between 2018 and 2023 in Germany. German prosecutors have charged seven people linked to the group.

In September 2025, the Hungarian government designated the group as terrorist after nine members allegedly attacked people with hammers, batons and pepper spray in Budapest in 2023.

The International Revolutionary Front, also known as the Informal Anarchist Federation, is a coalition of groups based in Italy supporting revolutionary armed conflict against the state. The group has been involved in dozens of violent and criminal incidents over the past two decades: letter bombs addressed to government and industrial targets, small explosive devices, shootings, including that in 2012 of a nuclear engineering official.

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Antifa protesters demonstrate in Greece. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)

Two other Greek-based groups: Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self Defense, have carried out attacks on government buildings throughout Greece, most recently attacking the headquarters of the Hellenic Railway in a bombing in April.

The Revolutionary Class Self-Defense dedicated the bombings to “the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance.”

“Antifa anarchists, Marxists and violent extremists have waged a campaign of terror in the United States and the Western world for decades, carrying out bombings, beatings, shootings and riots in service of their extremist agenda,” said Senior Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Piggot.

Antifa protesters march in Rome. (Andrea Ronchini/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“The State Department is committed to identifying and dismantling these terrorist networks that conspire to ruthlessly suppress the will of the people and violently undermine the very foundations of the United States and Western civilization.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., who had written to Rubio to advocate for the designation, praised the move.

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“I am grateful to Secretary Rubio and the Trump Administration for working with me on this critical issue: holding accountable those radical groups that enable, finance, and support political violence in the United States and around the world.”

The designation marks a rare use of foreign terrorism sanctions against far-left extremist groups, which are typically treated as domestic security threats by European governments rather than international terrorist networks.