State Department hits 4 antifa groups with foreign terrorist organization tags

The State Department designated four antifa groups as foreign terrorist organizations on Thursday.

FTOs are foreign groups designated as terrorists in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

It’s unlawful for a person in the U.S. or subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to a designated FTO, which includes such groups as Hamas, al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, some wings of the Irish Republican Army and several Latin American drug cartels.

The department described the antifa organizations as anarchist militant groups that “have waged terror campaigns in the United States and Europe, conspiring to undermine the foundations of Western Civilization through their brutal attacks.”

The terrorist designations deny violent organizations access to the U.S. financial system and impose severe penalties on those who support them.

The Trump administration says it will continue to identify and disrupt antifa’s terror networks across the world.

In Germany, there’s Antifa Ost, which the State Department labeled an FTO while describing it as “infamous for wielding hammers in premeditated attacks against unsuspecting victims.”

That group was named a terrorist organization by Hungary following its attack on nine victims in Budapest.

The second FTO called out by the department is the International Revolutionary Front, “an Italy-based coalition of violent anarchists.”

The department said the group claimed responsibility “for the shooting of an engineering executive in Genoa and sent a series of bombs to politicians, embassies and civilian targets, injuring several people.”

The State Department also named Armed Proletarian Justice an FTO, calling it a “violent Greek anarchist group that pledges to wage armed conflict against police officers and state infrastructure.”

Additionally, the terror organization used dynamite to build a homemade bomb — then planted it near a Greek riot police headquarters in a failed attack, the department said.

The final FTO named by the State Department is Revolutionary Class Self-Defense, “a violent anarchist and anti-capitalist group in Greece that claimed responsibility for improvised explosive device attacks targeting the Greek Ministry of Labor and the offices of a major railway.”

President Trump last month said he was prepared to declare antifa a terrorist organization after hearing from journalists who were battered while covering the group.

“I think it’s the kind of thing I’d like to do,” Mr. Trump said, when asked if he was considering declaring the black-clad group of demonstrators an FTO.

Mr. Trump spoke as he sat at a round table with Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, envoy Steve Witkoff and several of the journalists.

Those reporters recounted their experience of being physically assaulted by members of the group and how their stories are often ignored or discounted by local officials and media outlets.

In September, Mr. Trump signed an executive order designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.

The order details how antifa recruits, trains and radicalizes young Americans to engage in violence against federal law enforcement officers, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

All relevant executive departments and agencies have been instructed to investigate, disrupt and dismantle illegal operations by antifa, short of anti-fascist.