Rubio: Far-Left Attacks Now Reaching Levels Not Seen in Decades

On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stark warning about the rise of left-wing violence. Speaking at a State Department function attended by at least 60 delegations from other countries, Secretary Rubio spoke about the rise of far-left political violence and the need to adopt counter-terrorism tactics to combat it.

The Secretary of State, in his remarks, effectively called this what it is: An alarming rise in far-left political terrorism.
Speaking at the opening of a State Department ministerial attended by roughly 65 foreign delegations, Rubio said governments had spent too long overlooking what he described as a resurgence of transnational far-left extremist violence and called for greater international cooperation to counter it.
Rubio described radical leftism as "a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice."
"Today we face a new wave of this old evil here in the United States, the share of left-wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in decades," the secretary went on.

These attacks have taken the form of riots and arson (summer of 2020) as well as direct attacks on law enforcement officers, on government buildings and installations, and, of course, three attempts on the life of the President of the United States. This isn't just crime; it's political terrorism, and it's gotten to the point where Supreme Court justices are having to wear body armor. And it's not just happening in the United States.

Rubio said the administration is rebuilding the U.S. counterterrorism strategy around what it views as an increasingly transnational threat, announcing that additional foreign terrorist organization designations are forthcoming after the State Department designated four foreign far-left groups in November 2025.
Rubio said far-left extremist networks coordinate across borders by sharing training materials, encrypted communications, financing and safe houses while working alongside hostile foreign states. He argued the United States and its allies must respond by expanding intelligence sharing, law enforcement cooperation and efforts to disrupt terrorist financing.
"You are here because this is real, and it is getting worse, and it can no longer be denied, and it can no longer be ignored," Rubio said. "It is time to crush this evil forever."

What the Secretary is proposing, in fact, is that these far-left political terror actors be treated as we have been treating Islamist terrorists.

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At least two recent events in Europe were highlighted:

On July 1, coordinated firebomb attacks targeted the homes of members of Greece's governing New Democracy party in Thessaloniki, killing the mother of parliamentary candidate Afroditi Nestora and injuring four others. Greek anti-terrorism police later arrested three suspects.
In January, an arson attack on a power transmission facility in Berlin, Germany, knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. German authorities later transferred the investigation to the federal prosecutor over suspected involvement by a terrorist organization.

There's another alarming possibility: The possible combination of far-left groups with Islamist groups. Other than the spectacle of weird blue-haired nutcases waving "Queers for Palestine" signs and so forth, obviously being sadly ignorant about what their fate would be in Gaza, there is some historical precedent for just such a combination. Those of us who remember the notorious German Baader-Meinhof Group will remember their combining with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the 1977 hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181, carried out by PFLP, who demanded the release of Baader-Meinhof Group members in prison. The PFLP was generally described as a Marxist group at the time, but they had strong connections to Islamist groups.

If it's happened once, it could happen again. Secretary Rubio is correct: This will take a coordinated effort by the international community to deal with, assuming the international community has the nerve for it.

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