First Terrorism Charges Against Alleged Antifa Members Revealed

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Two alleged Antifa members were indicted by a federal grand jury on terrorism-related charges in relation to a July 4 attack on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas, FBI Director Kash Patel announced in a statement obtained by FOX News on Thursday (October 16).

Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts were charged with providing material support for terrorism, attempting to murder federal and assisting officers and discharging firearms during attempted murders, according to the indictment, which was issued on Wednesday (October 15) and unsealed the following day.

"For the first time ever, the FBI has arrested anarchist violent extremists and charged these Antifa-aligned individuals with material support to terrorism," Patel said.

"This was a planned and coordinated terrorist attack on the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, where armed extremists tried to murder U.S. officers on July 4th," he added.

The indictment came one month after President Donald Trump announced plans to designate Antifa as a "major terrorist organization" and later signed an executive order.

"We are executing under President Trump's new authorities at record speed. To date, the FBI has made over 20 arrests tied to this case and related Antifa networks. No one gets to harm law enforcement. Not on our watch," Patel said.

Arnod and Evetts were previously charged with alleged ambush of federal agents at the ICE facility and attempting to kill two correctional officers and an Alvarado police officer before the additional cout of providing material support to terrorists was added on Thursday.

Antifa, which is short for "anti-fascists," is a broad label for far-left-leaning militant groups opposing fascists and neo-Nazis, particularly at demonstrations, however, isn't a single entity. Prosecutors in the Northern District of Texas described Antifa as "militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and the system of law" in the indictment.


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