U.S. Foreign Policy  /  Counterterrorism

Rubio Warns of Resurgent Political Terrorism, Unveils International Coalition Against Far-Left Extremism

In a landmark address to representatives from more than 60 nations, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that far-left political violence has reemerged as a transnational security threat, and detailed a series of Trump administration measures aimed at dismantling militant networks tied to the movement.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered the keynote address at an international counterterrorism conference convening officials from more than 60 countries. (Source: U.S. Department of State)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told an unprecedented gathering of political leaders, security officials, and counterterrorism experts from more than 60 countries this week that the West’s counterterrorism architecture, built almost entirely around the threat of Islamist extremism since the September 11 attacks, must now be reoriented to confront a resurgent and increasingly organized threat from the far left.

Rubio opened his remarks by crediting the post-9/11 global campaign against jihadist terrorism, including the defeat of the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate and the deaths of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, with driving jihadist plots in the United States down by roughly two-thirds since ISIS’s peak, and cutting jihadist terrorism deaths in Europe by nearly 97 percent between 2015 and 2024. But he argued that success has been accompanied by a decades-long blind spot toward political violence originating from the left, which he said has too often been minimized by media, academic, and policy institutions as a partisan exaggeration rather than treated as a comparable security threat.

“It is time for the peoples of the civilized world to defend ourselves — to stand united against this encroaching darkness and fight for what is ours.” — Secretary of State Marco Rubio

A Pattern the Secretary Says Is Not New

Much of the address was devoted to situating today’s threat within a longer history. Rubio pointed to Cold War-era leftist militant and guerrilla movements across Latin America, including Peru’s Shining Path, Colombia’s FARC and ELN, and Uruguay’s Tupamaros, as well as Europe’s Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction in Germany, and the “17 November” organization in Greece, which he said assassinated a CIA station chief outside his home in Athens. In the United States, he cited the Weather Underground’s bombings of the Pentagon, State Department and Capitol, the Black Liberation Army, and the Symbionese Liberation Army as historical examples of the same ideological current.

He cited FBI data indicating that roughly 2,500 bombings occurred on U.S. soil over an 18-month span in 1971 and 1972, and referenced a figure attributing 93 percent of Western terrorist attacks between 1970 and 1980 to far-left actors.

Recent Incidents Cited

Turning to the present, Rubio described a string of recent attacks he said illustrate the scale of the current threat: a 72-year-old woman killed in a firebombing at her home in Greece after her daughter ran for office; a days-long blackout in Berlin this past winter that left an 83-year-old woman dead; the beating death of a 23-year-old in Lyon, France; and a series of attacks on U.S. immigration officers. He also referenced the shooting at a Catholic elementary school, an attack on a healthcare executive, multiple threats against a sitting president, and the killing of a prominent conservative activist, framing each as part of an escalating pattern rather than isolated incidents.

Rubio further alleged that far-left militant networks increasingly coordinate across borders, sharing propaganda, funding, and logistics, and asserted links between some of these networks and hostile foreign states, naming Iran and Cuba specifically as actors he said have supported far-left militancy in the West.

Policy Actions Announced

Rubio used the address to outline a series of steps the Trump administration has taken or plans to take in response. He said the measures build on National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directs federal agencies to investigate and disrupt Antifa-linked terror networks and their allies.

Rubio closed by calling for expanded intelligence sharing, coordinated law enforcement strategy, and financial targeting of these networks among the assembled coalition, describing the effort as a long-term, multinational campaign rather than a single initiative.

“We can — and must — identify and map this threat, and rebuild our counterterrorism architecture to defeat it.” — Secretary of State Marco Rubio

The address was delivered as part of an international counterterrorism conference hosted by the State Department, and was published in full by the department’s official Substack channel following the event.