U.S. sanctions left-wing European groups, designates them foreign terrorists
The move Thursday follows President Trump's designation of Antifa in the U.S. as a domestic terror group earlier this fall.
The U.S. government moved to sanction four left-wing groups operating in Europe after moving to designate them as foreign terrorist organizations Thursday.
Those targeted by the new actions include Antifa-Ost of Germany, Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense of Greece, and the Informal Anarchist Federation of Italy.
This move by the U.S. comes in the wake of escalating rhetoric by the White House against far-left groups within the United States. In September, President Trump declared American Antifa chapters (short for anti-fascist) a domestic terrorist organization.
The new sanctions against the European groups seek to freeze the financial assets of the organizations and economically isolate them. Americans also risk sanctions themselves for doing business with them.
In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson with the U.S. Department of State outlined the violent history associated with the four groups in particular.
Members of Antifa-Ost, U.S. officials and German prosecutors say, were responsible for attacks on a gathering of right-wing extremists in Budapest in 2023.
Greece’s Armed Proletarian Justice admitted to placing a bomb near the headquarters of the Greek riot police in the Athens suburb of Goudi in 2023, according to Greek news outlets and the State Department. The bomb apparently did not detonate because of a failure in wiring.
The Greek anarchist faction Revolutionary Class Self-Defense is linked with an IED blast at the offices of Greece’s railway; no injuries were reported in that instance, though the building was significantly damaged. The group also targeted the country’s labor ministry headquarters with explosives.
These groups are now sanctioned under a program that puts them in company with al-Qaeda, the New Irish Republican Army, Boko Haram of Nigeria, and the Communist Party of the Philippines, among many other organizations.