The Italian security services has revealed an increasing threat of far-left radical anarchists with a report claiming a “growing tendency toward radicalisation.”
The annual report, which examines both internal and external threats to Italian security, highlighted the danger from anarchist movements, such as the Antifa movement, saying that they had become “insidious,” Il Giornale reports.
“Information findings have shown a growing tendency towards radicalisation, especially through the dissemination of documentation and detailed data on the objectives to hit, combined with attempts to favour tactical convergence between the different visions of anarchist action,” the report said.
The report also highlighted the international connection between far-left extremist groups saying they had, “confirmed the intensity of the international connections of anarcho-insurrectionism, highlighting strong contacts, both physical and virtual, between militants, as well as their sustained mobility between different countries, on the occasion of propaganda and mobilisation initiatives.”
The security services also noted that far-left extremists had latched on to various movements including anti-racism and anti-fascism. They have also, according to the report, increasingly started recruiting new extremists from foreign backgrounds.
“The foreign population is considered, in particular, by the more extreme segments, a recruitment area capable of producing conflict,” the report said.
The rise of far-left Antifa violence since the height of the migrant crisis and the growth of populist parties has been seen across Europe.
In Italy, far-left extremists took credit for the bombing of an office of the populist League party led by Matteo Salvini last year in Treviso and others have called for Salvini’s assassination.
In other European countries, far-left violence has also risen. In Germany, security officials warned last June that leftist extremists were becoming more violent and that they counted at least 9,000 potentially violent extremists, up 27 percent from 2012 to 2017.
Along with putting out a terror handbook last year, Antifa members have allegedly claimed responsibility for the brutal attack on Alternative for Germany (AfD) MP Frank Magnitz and have been accused of being involved in the firebombing of an AfD office earlier in the year.
The far-left Antifa-linked website Indymedia also saw a post that advocated not only for the targetted assassinations of AfD members but also gave advice on how to carry out successful killings.