Letter Bombs And Hammer Attacks – US Adds European Antifa Groups To Terror List

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.

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