
Since US President Donald Trump designated Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization” in 2025, the US government has gradually begun to take left-wing extremism seriously. The latest step in that process occurred in late August when the US State Department chose to designate Autistici/Inventati (A/I Collective), an Italian left-wing extremist group that has acted as a web host for ideological like-minded people around the world, as a terrorist organization.
In this way, the US State Department was able to access thousands of left-wing extremist websites and blogs that were run in both the US and Europe.
“Today, the United States sanctioned several transnational far-left terrorist networks, including Autistici/Inventati — a large far-left tech collective whose services are used by the most active and violent Antifa cells in the United States and around the world,” said US Secretary of State Rubio on the same day.
“There will be no safe haven for violent extremists who wage war on our civilization and plot to undermine law and order, destroy critical infrastructure, attack political opponents, or conspire to hide their crimes from authorities,” he promised. “We will use every tool and authority at our disposal to combat terrorism and protect our way of life from terrorist threats.”
The results were quickly noticeable. 16,000 email addresses, 1,500 websites, 5,500 mailing lists and a network of around 10,000 blogs used by various left-wing extremist groups from both Europe and the US were initially rendered unusable. A/I lost access to bank accounts and was forced to announce as recently as last weekend that it was closing down operations.
When US President Donald Trump chose to classify left-wing extremist groups belonging to Antifa as collectively belonging to a “domestic terrorist organization” on September 22, 2025, it was a turning point regarding the US president’s acceptance of left-wing extremists compared to Trump’s predecessors.
“I am pleased to inform our many American patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, LEFT-WING DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. I will also strongly recommend that those who fund ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and methods,” Trump wrote in a social media post regarding the presidential order.
It has given US authorities greater powers to counter them, although they cannot be banned under US law, which has far-reaching protections for citizens to organize politically.
Because of this, many have claimed that Trump’s terror rhetoric would only be a blow in the air, partly because left-wing extremists have long made a big deal out of the fact that Antifa is not a standardized hierarchical organization with leadership or a membership register, but instead consists of loosely gathered left-wing extremists from other organizations and parties who organize themselves into cell structures to carry out attacks or actions against political opponents.
However, history shows that being part of terrorist cells, regardless of what they are called, has not been able to provide complete protection for left-wing extremists. To circumvent these obstacles, the American state has instead chosen to focus on foreign Antifa groups, which have supported each other’s illegal activities through various forms of networking, economics and exchange.
FWM has written about how the US State Department has already classified several European left-wing extremist groups as global terrorist organizations, including the infamous “Hammer League” from Germany, which specialized in cowardly and brutal attacks on lone victims. Now, new terror classifications have been made and have had a major impact.
On August 26, the US State Department designated three left-wing extremist organizations as terrorist organizations:
- Palestine Action in the UK, which is linked to direct actions and damage to Israeli interests and primarily pursues a pro-Palestinian agenda, but with extensive convergence with other left-wing extremist groups in terms of organization.
- Masar Badil , a transnational Palestinian left-wing organization described as a front for more radical left-wing extremist organizations linked to the Palestinian struggle, was also designated a terrorist organization.
- The third organization classified as a terrorist organization was the Italian-based Autistici/Inventati (A/I Collective) , which is considered to have extensive connections to several international left-wing and anarchist extremist groups, not least several of the most prominent American organizations such as Rose City Antifa, Stop Cop City and Against Beltway Fascism.
Among other things, Autistici/Inventati, which was founded in 2001 and describes itself as a technological collective focused on helping “activists and social movements,” provided a digital infrastructure for left-wing extremist organizations in several parts of the world. It functioned as a web host, offering encrypted websites and services to its ideological followers.
“Autistici/Inventati (the A/I collective) is an extremist group based in Italy that builds and operates the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells and other far-left militants worldwide. A/I’s cadre of radical hackers and technology developers provides a full spectrum of services—including encrypted chat and email, web hosting, secure video conferencing and streaming, anonymity protection, and a suite of other technological tools—to Marxist, anarchist, and other far-left groups in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. These tools are specifically designed to support the operations of far-left terrorist networks, built to enable them to organize, recruit, communicate, disseminate propaganda, share targeting information and tactics, and carry out violent attacks—all while remaining anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law,” the U.S. State Department wrote in a statement accompanying the decision.
According to the US State Department, Rose City Antifa urged its members and activists on websites run via Italian servers hosted by Autistici/Inventati to “attack ICE everywhere, on the streets, in their homes” and also “to find each other, make plans, and strike them where it hurts the most.”
Founded Antifa in the US. Caroline Victorin, a Swedish AFA veteran, started Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon in 2007. Here she is seen with her husband Johan Victorin, who is also active in AFA/Antifa. The couple had to flee the US because of their criminal activities and now live in Sweden. Photo: Private
The services were also used to hang out government officials and agents and their families within the US immigration agency ICE. Several of the people who were hung out were subsequently subjected to various forms of attacks, threats and attempted murder. This must be seen in the light of several violent attacks on ICE personnel and facilities, including a violent attack carried out by heavily armed Antifa members on an immigration detention center in the state of Texas in 2025. During the largely unsuccessful attack, which was carried out with bombs and firearms, a police officer was shot in the neck and seriously injured. Nine Antifa members were arrested after the attack and were sentenced in July of this year to long prison sentences of between 30 and 100 years for their participation in the crimes.
In an initial statement, A/I was combative, saying that the classification of them as terrorists was unfounded. Although they support “anti-fascism,” they said they had no responsibility for what hundreds of left-wing extremists did with the websites they provided.
“The US has defined us as terrorists on non-legal grounds. They want to freeze our servers and our accounts with a stroke of a pen from Washington. They are trying to wipe us out in a unilateral decree – an arbitrary one.”
But the terrorist designation still had almost immediate effects. On August 28, the group’s .org domain was suspended, making access to their websites impossible. On the same day, an unknown party managed to hack their network and gain access to the user database, all email addresses, and other critical information. At the same time, donation accounts at Paypal stopped working for the organization. Shortly thereafter, the organization’s Italian bank froze their accounts.
The pressure quickly grew and on September 6th, A/I announced that operations would cease and the organization would be closed down.
“The possibility that our work could have legal and financial consequences for those close to us — or even just have something to do with us — leaves us with no choice,” A/I wrote. “Under these circumstances, we can no longer maintain our original mission — to provide safe and non-commercial digital tools.”
Until September 25th, certain, severely limited functions, such as only being able to read and save already published texts, will be available to all the thousands of left-wing extremists who have used their services, after which these will also be shut down.
One of the left-wing extremists who claims to have been affected is Anne Roth, a member of parliament for the German Left Party and one of the founders of the left-wing extremist network Indymedia. When her husband was under investigation for his role in a terrorist-classified left-wing extremist group, she started a blog via A/I’s web hosting. “Two decades of blogging are lost,” she now laments on social media, writing that “it feels like someone is stealing my home from me – my online home.”
One of the effects of the terrorist classification of A/I is that those who, for example, call for donations, or donate money to the operation themselves, may now themselves be classified as terrorists by the American state. For American citizens, this means up to twenty years in prison and a fine of up to 10 million kronor. For citizens of other countries, this means a risk of being subjected to the same measures that affected A/I.









