Authored by Janice Hisle and Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

An official U.S. terrorist list dominated by jihadist groups and a clutch of cartels has its first European additions in more than two decades: four Antifa groups.

Designating groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) empowers U.S. federal authorities to investigate the groups’ supporters, prosecute them, and seize their assets.

The European groups, which were added to the list on Nov. 20, include Italian anarchists who carried out a letter-bomb campaign against EU leaders, a German hammer-wielding gang accused of targeting right-wing party members, and two Greek anti-capitalist groups.

The designations reflect President Donald Trump’s commitment “to uproot Antifa’s campaign of political violence,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote when announcing the designations on Nov. 13.

Short for “antifascist,” Antifa seeks to silence people whose viewpoints it defines as “fascist,” and vows to do so “by any means necessary”—a popular Antifa rallying cry.

Here is what to know about the four foreign groups and how, according to one former CIA operative, the designation helps the Trump administration confront Antifa on U.S. soil.

Italy, Home of ‘World’s Largest Anarchist Network’

One of the newly declared FTOs hails from Italy, where fascism originated under dictator Benito Mussolini in the 1920s.

The group is called the Informal Anarchist Federation, also known as the International Revolutionary Front.

The Informal Anarchist Federation “is likely the world’s largest anarchist network and the one that claims the highest number of attacks,” according to a March 2024 report published by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.

The group has claimed responsibility for attacks in Italy, Greece, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Chile, Brazil, and Mexico, the report said.

Since 2003, the organization has committed violence, bombings, letter-bombs, and other attacks against places it deems “capitalist institutions,” the State Department said in a Nov. 13 fact sheet. Although it mostly operates in Italy, the group has “self-proclaimed affiliates across Europe, South America, and Asia,” the fact sheet said.

The Informal Anarchist Federation declares that “armed struggle” is necessary against nation-states and “The Fortress Europe,” according to the State Department.

Police officers and demonstrators clash during an anti-fascist and anti-racist march to protest against a Lega Nord party general election campaign rally on Piazza Duomo in Milan on Feb. 24, 2018. Francesca Volpi/Getty Images

In 2014, as Antifa was growing globally, West Point, America’s first military academy, published a profile of the Informal Anarchist Federation.

The report said the group served as a sign that Italy had become “the birthplace of a new threat that has spread to other countries,” the article said.

By then, the Informal Anarchist Federation had been responsible for “dozens of attacks” over a 25-year span in Italy and elsewhere—a trend that Italian authorities had “underestimated” partly because the attacks caused no fatalities, the West Point report said.

However, this type of “insurrectionary anarchism … has become the most dangerous form of domestic non-jihadist terrorism in the country,” the article said.

The Informal Anarchist Federation “has ideological and solidarity ties with Greek anarchist groups,” the report said.

Greek Anti-Capitalist Groups

Revolutionary Class Self-Defense and Armed Proletarian Justice are two newly designated FTOs that are based in Greece.

Both claim to be “anti-capitalist” and are known to use improvised explosive devices in attacks against Greek governmental targets.

Revolutionary Class Self-Defense has been outspoken in its solidarity with Palestine’s conflicts with Israel; the group dedicated two recent attacks to the Palestinians.

In February 2024, an explosive device targeted the Greek Ministry of Labor, but officials evacuated the area, resulting in no injuries.

In April 2025, Revolutionary Class Self-Defense claimed responsibility for that attack and also for an explosion at the Hellenic Train offices, saying railway safety concerns motivated the attack.

Members of the Greek police counterterrorism unit investigate the area outside Hellenic Train offices after a bomb exploded in Athens on April 11, 2025. The U.S. State Department designated both the Greece-based Revolutionary Class Self-Defense and Armed Proletarian Justice groups as foreign terrorist organizations. Aris Oikonomou/SOOC/AFP via Getty Images

The other Greek group, Armed Proletarian Justice, claimed responsibility for a 2023 bombing attempt at a police headquarters in Athens.

In a public post on an anarchist website, the group said: “You were lucky this time, the same will not apply next time. We dedicate our action to those who have been murdered, tortured, beaten and raped by the Greek Police.”

Germany’s Hammer Gang

After antifascism took hold in Italy, some people in Germany also became early adopters of antifascist ideology; Germany is often considered the cradle of the Antifa movement as we know it today. That’s partly because it was the origin of flags and other symbols still in use, along with the “black bloc” protest method, in which participants don black masks and clothing to avoid being identified.

A group known as Antifa Ost, German for “Antifa East,” stands out among the four new FTO designees partly because of its methods.

As its nickname, the Hammerbande—German for “Hammer Gang”—implies, Antifa Ost has been known to bludgeon its victims with hammers. Hammer attacks have been carried out in broad daylight, online videos show.

Seven members of the group began standing trial in Germany Nov. 25 for attempted murder and other charges. From 2018 to 2023, the group attacked people it regarded as fascists, German prosecutors said.

However, at the time of the FTO designation, German authorities downplayed the threat that Antifa Ost might pose.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Sarah Fruehauf told reporters that the group’s leaders and most-violent members were either in custody or imprisoned.

German government spokesperson Steffen Meyer said Washington acted without influence from Berlin in declaring the group a terrorist organization.

The U.S. designation of Antifa Ost as an FTO followed Hungary’s decision to impose that label on the group.

In 2023, outrage spread among Hungarians after Antifa Ost members were accused of injuring nine people at a right-wing gathering in Budapest described as “extremist” in the European press. At least one person was a passerby who was singled out for the attack because he wore camouflage-print clothes, marking him as a potential fascist to the attackers, Hungary Today reported.

Demonstrators hold antifa flags and banners during a Revolutionary May Day march in the Neukoelln district in Berlin on May 1, 2025. The Trump administration designated the German group Antifa Ost as a foreign terrorist organization; it is also known as “Hammerbande,” German for “Hammer Gang.” Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images

Prosecution of one suspect, Italian citizen Ilaria Salis, was interrupted in 2024 after she won a seat in the European Parliament, granting her immunity.

A social media account under the name “antifaost” states in its profile, “Action against the far right in eastern Germany. Never again fascism!”

What Power Does FTO Label Give US?

Simply put, the FTO designation makes it illegal for anyone in the United States to conduct business with the groups, or to provide material support or resources to them.

FTO designation falls under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and Executive Order 13224.

The FTO designation was made after Trump signed an executive order in September naming Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization.”

Trump’s order commanded agencies 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.”

FBI Director Kash Patel told The Epoch Times, “With our partners in Treasury, we are following the money and mapping out this entire network and treating them as a terrorist organization under the authorities the president has given us.

“In the turn of the new year, you’re going to see some very righteous prosecutions and investigations being publicized,” the director added.

An Antifa demonstrator kicks a smoke bomb back toward federal officers outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 5, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

US Antifa ‘Networked With Foreign Antifa’

J. Michael Waller, a former CIA operative who now serves as a senior analyst at the Center for Security Policy, said Trump’s FTO declarations have “energized the fight against domestic violent extremism by bringing ironclad existing federal laws into play.”

“These foreign groups and domestic Antifa communicate back and forth. There are degrees of collaboration,” he told The Epoch Times. “The FTO designation gives authorities here more tools to crack down on domestic extremists in ways that have already been settled in court.”

While federal laws define FTO, there is no such definition for “domestic terrorist organization.” That designation might face a court challenge.

“However, it narrows the dangerous, anti-free-speech ‘countering violent extremism’ designation” that originated under President Barack Obama, Waller said.

Trump’s “domestic terrorist” label relies on laws that define terrorism, while Obama’s “violent extremism” label lacked such legal underpinnings. Therefore, the Obama-era label could easily be applied in a “random and arbitrary” way, he said.

Together, the domestic and foreign designations weaken U.S-based groups. “American Antifa is networked with foreign Antifa, and so this is a way to go in and to use foreign terrorism-support laws against American terrorist groups,” Waller said.

Some people harbor misconceptions about Antifa, Waller said. Observers may accept that fascism is bad. So, because the groups say they’re “antifascist,” people perceive “they must be good guys,” he said, and that violent or unruly protests result from “youthful frustration.”

“They’re not just out there to smash windows … Their goal is to overthrow our government,” Waller said, perhaps one city at a time.

Antifa employs tactics and ideology espoused by Russian dictator Josef Stalin, Waller noted.

Post-World-War-I, the goal of German Antifa, established in 1932 under Stalin’s influence, was to “tear out” political centrists and polarize the nation. Communists joined anarchists on one side, opposing Nazis on the other. That polarization is what brought German dictator Adolf Hitler to power, Waller said.

The Unity Congress of Antifa at the Philharmonic Opera House, organized by Germany’s Communist Party in response to Benito Mussolini’s rise in the 1920s, in Berlin on July 10, 1932. Public Domain

Future Ramifications

Waller called the FTO designations “a really smart move” to prevent the groups’ adherents from spreading propaganda in the United States or entering the country. The designation also blocks access to domestic bank accounts.

It is vital for Trump to take action to halt Antifa, Waller said. “This has to be smashed—now. He can’t have a successful presidency and leave us to inherit this mess any further.”

Five recent guilty pleas in a Texas Antifa terrorism case will strengthen future prosecutions, Waller said.

In that case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) “worked with outside groups to formulate a very fine and legally bulletproof definition of what Antifa is as an organization—not just a nebulous idea like we had been led to believe,” he said.

He called that strategy “brilliant.”

With those plea agreements, “the DOJ has just proven under law that [Antifa] is an organization,” he said, a definition that might have taken years to prove in court otherwise.

Additional defendants still face charges in that case, which arose from a July confrontation at an immigration-detention center; an officer was shot but survived.

President Donald Trump (C) chairs a roundtable about Antifa in the State Dining Room of the White House on Oct. 8, 2025. The foreign terrorist organization designation followed Trump’s September order labeling Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Prior to Trump’s orders, the FBI “had no reason to monitor” or even learn about Antifa cells, Waller said.

Trump’s directives changed that. “This is a priority presidential order for them, and suddenly there’s a whole lot of interest in it,” Waller said, adding, “This is just the beginning of a very long term, very well-thought-out strategic plan.”