(CNN) — Facing what Secretary of State Marco Rubio will describe as a “resurgence” of “far left political terrorism,” according to a State Department official, Rubio will convene diplomats from around the world in Washington on Thursday to discuss a response.
It is a key priority of the Trump administration, which has argued in its counterterrorism strategy that “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists” are foremost terrorist threat to the United States, alongside cartels and “legacy Islamist terrorists.”
However, multiple former officials said the issue has been politicized by the administration and that the threat from the “far-left” does not rise to the level of that posed by groups like ISIS or by far-right extremists. The latter was absent entirely from the administration’s counterterrorism strategy released in May.
Thursday’s ministerial, according to the State Department, is meant to “expand coordination, enhance information sharing, and strengthen international law enforcement mechanisms to counter the threat” that it says has “remained a blind spot in the international community’s counterterrorism focus.”
A senior State Department official said 65 country delegations are slated to attend the event from “across the Western Hemisphere, Asia, Europe, and beyond.”
According to sources, many of the delegations will not be led by the foreign ministers of the countries, but rather more working-level and technical officials. Several cited scheduling, with invitations to the event only being issued at the beginning of July.
Countries that had worked with the administration on the topic were among those invited, the official said, noting they’ve had “very productive engagements with Germany, with Greece, with Italy, and that’s often where the problem is most pronounced in Europe.”
In his speech, Rubio plans to describe left-wing terrorism as “the result of a unique evil rooted in a deep resentment towards civilization,” according to the State Department official. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller are also expected to participate.
The threat of left-wing terrorism “has not really been addressed collectively in an effective way,” the senior State Department official said. According to the official, partners have said they “have a handle” on other forms of political violence but “this one is more difficult for us.”
The senior official cited attacks by members of European Antifa groups, which the administration designated as terrorists last November, as examples of far-left terrorist actions. They did not provide examples from other parts of the world but said they are focused on “violent criminal terrorist acts,” when asked if a leftist protest would be considered a form of far-left terrorism.
However, former officials said the ministerial appears to be a part of the administration’s broader effort to amplify the threat and target those on the political left who oppose Trump’s policies. Several who spoke with CNN said that the reality of the threat from far-left extremists does not match the administration’s portrayal.
“We looked at terrorism of all stripes, including left-wing terrorism, but the reality and the data, both here domestically and abroad, indicate that left-wing extremism is not and has not been the type of threat or the degree of threat that far-right terrorism or extremist violence or jihadist violence have posed,” said Ian Moss, the former deputy coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department under the Biden administration.
Moss, now an attorney with Jenner & Block, noted that there are “other forms of violent ideological extremism, Islamist violence for starters, and then certainly violent right-wing extremists or White identity terrorists, which are a real risk, a real concern domestically and internationally, and one that the administration seems to have not focused on.”
Michael Duffin, a former senior counterterrorism adviser at the State Department, said that “never” in his nine years of working on counterterrorism “had so-called left-wing extremism risen” to a level warranting such high-level focus.
“There’s no violent extremist element, organizational element on the left, that would the expenditure of these resources,” he told CNN. Duffin was among many State Department officials who worked on counterterrorism who were fired last year as part of the administration’s mass firings and overhaul of the department.
Throughout President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has also ramped up domestic pressure against alleged far-left extremists.
Trump designated the anti-fascist movement Antifa as a so-called “domestic terrorist organization.” Despite claims that Antifa is a top concern domestically, law enforcement agencies have struggled to define the amorphous group, its size, locations of chapters and other basic information.
The-CNN-Wire
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