A leaked internal report from the Department of Homeland Security revealed that the federal government is investigating a half-dozen Americans who support antifa for possible connections to a terrorist group in Syria.
DHS’s Intelligence & Analysis Office, criticized by acting Secretary Chad Wolf last week for compiling information on two journalists, released an internal report in mid-July titled The Syrian Conflict and its Nexus to the U.S.-based Antifascist Movement. The investigation began in June, two weeks after President Trump promised to designate antifa a terrorist organization and just as attacks on federal property and federal agents in Portland, Oregon, were escalating.
The government report was not to be shared publicly, in part because it names those investigated, and concludes that “there appears to be a clear connection” between the antifa ideology and what the report described as “Kurdish democratic federalism teachings,” according to a copy obtained by The Nation’s Ken Klippenstein.
More than half a dozen people left the United States to fight alongside Kurdish factions, including the People’s Protection Units, according to DHS’s Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center Counter Network Division, who compiled information in the report.
“[CBP’s] concern about and interest in these individuals stems from the types of skills and motivations that may have developed during their time overseas engaged in foreign conflicts,” the intelligence report states.
Yet none of the Kurdish groups are listed by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. DHS defines antifa as “driven by a mixed range of far-left political ideologies, including anti-capitalism, communism, socialism, and anarchism.” An act of terrorism is defined by the Patriot Act as something “dangerous to human life” and a “violation of the criminal laws of the U.S.” to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” “influence the policy of a government,” or “affect the conduct of a government.” It was not revealed who ordered the DHS report linking antifa and Kurdish forces, and DHS did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
One American caught up in the investigation was Brace Belden, a co-host of the TrueAnon podcast, who fought with Kurdish forces in 2016. CBP officers working at the airport in San Francisco encountered him as he was returning to the U.S. on a flight from Germany in 2017. Belden told The Nation that he was not associated with antifa and had learned of a Rolling Stone story written about him during his trip that described him as a communist who went to fight overseas.
“The US government has been spying on and smearing communists for 100 years, but they usually have the decency not to call a Red an anarchist!” he said.
A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that in the last 25 years, antifa activists had not been deemed responsible for any killings in the U.S. despite its supporters’ involvement in riots and violent protests.
