From Vice - By Jake Hanrahan
On May 7th, 2012, two masked gunmen crept up on the CEO of nuclear engineering firm Ansaldo Nucleare outside his home in Italy. As their target—56-year-old Roberto Adinolfi—emerged from his house, the gunmen fired three shots at him. One shattered Adinolfi’s right kneecap. The attackers weren't petty extortionists or Mafia guns for hire, as was initially assumed, but members of what is considered to be a highly organized and shadowy left-wing terrorist organisation named Federazione Anarchica Informale—shortened to the FAI, or the Informal Anarchist Federation in English.
After the FAI had claimed the attack on Adinolfi, the mainstream press effectively attributed it to a bunch of trigger-happy Italian anarchists who were trying to imitate the Red Brigades—the Leninist-Marxist Brigate Rosse whose paramilitaries caused havoc in Italy throughout the 70s and 80s. In reality, the FAI actually holds no Marxist beliefs at all and have stated to me via an anonymous source that they have no affiliation with the Red Brigades whatsoever.
My source has taken many precautions and will only communicate with me via methods that are virtually untraceable, secretly handing me reams of FAI literature to sift through for research. The group's members are people who international security agents would very much like to sit down and talk to. Clearly they're anxious about police infiltration and take every precaution they can to protect the identities of their "comrades."
As demonstrated by Adinolfi's kneecapping (carried out because of his company’s affiliation with Italian defense conglomerate Finmeccanica, currently being investigated on corruption charges), the FAI’s MO is to carry out violent resistance against what they call the “European Fortress”—an FAI term for the unjust and oppressive forces they feel are running the continent.
Instead of peacefully handing out leaflets, they mask up and employ the full force of "direct action," proven by their many attacks like the bombing of private banks in Rome, the torching of surveillance towers in Russia, and the destruction of rail lines in the UK. They’ve also tried to send letter bombs to MEPs, which were either intercepted or didn’t explode (something the FAI says was an intentional scare tactic).

Forensics officers studying the Adinolfi crime scene.
As an informal organization without leaders, hierarchies, or figureheads, it can sometimes be hard to distinguish exactly what it is the FAI is fighting against. But through the hundreds of pages of FAI manifestos, memorandums, communiqués, and a meeting transcript I’ve read through, it seems obvious that their main objective is to destroy any form of “state” or leadership throughout Europe.
They claim to fight alongside the impoverished who are downtrodden in their own lands by unfair foreign-trade deals, for a "true personal freedom where the individual can decide their own fate without having to be governed by anyone." They state that the “total destruction of market and hierarchy” would help accomplish this. It could, of course, also cause widespread famine and allow bloodthirsty, psychopathic criminals to run amok—we've all seen the Batman fillms—but the sentiment seems to only deal directly with the idea of the revolution itself, and not its aftermath.
According to them, the FAI isn't out to make friends or help fix society. Instead, they claim to "fight continuously to remove the status quo and to implement a completely new and free society." The FAI feels that the only way for such ideals to exist is to have a world with no government and no authority of any kind. However, no solidarity is shown for those already being oppressed if they’re not prepared for violent combat against their enemies, because this is apparently just adding to the oppression the FAI aim to destroy.
In essence, the FAI is a nihilist-anarchist organization. The members aren't out to represent you or to protect anybody from the ruthless grip of inequality. They are not Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Lenin—they don’t care if your plight isn’t represented if you're just standing by with your hands in your pockets. But, if you're fighting like they are—if you're reaching into those pockets of yours and pulling out a letter bomb or a pistol, for example—then they’re most definitely with you. Especially if you're taking aim at the "European Fortress."

The aftermath of the FAI's Chile bank bomb.
The FAI's history runs back to the 90s and they're responsible for thousands of violent attacks, from blowing up banks in Chile to burning out cars belonging to Tory MPs and the Lord Mayor of Bristol. After sifting through the materials handed to me by the FAI, I still have no idea why they targeted the Lord Mayor of Bristol. And neither, judging by his quotes in this local news report, does he, but it seems his Toyota Prius and his wife's Ford Fiesta were deemed to be part of the European Fortress and so they had to die in the nihilists' fire.
Although officially founded as a movement in 2003, the FAI’s first recognized attack was in 1999, when they sent explosive devices to the Greek embassy, to an office of tourism in Madrid, and to a branch of Citibank in Barcelona. They sent the explosives in the mail to show solidarity with a man named Nikos Maziotis, now infamous for his statement to the Athens Criminal Court, after he was arrested for putting a bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development in Greece on December 12th, 1997.
After the 1999 mail bombs, FAI cells sent a torrent of incendiary explosive devices to organizations and journalists such as La Razón newspaper in Madrid, the church of Sant'Ambrogio, the court of Valencia, the Madrid Cathedral, and the Carabinieri (the national military police of Italy) in Genoa, which detonated and wounded one of the policemen. They've also sent out “parcels of dog shit” to two of their targets.

These incendiary attacks were a further fight against prisons, more specifically the FIES isolation units. These units go mostly unreported in the media, which is probably because they're brutal isolation blocks within Spanish prisons where unruly inmates are sent for months and years on end. They have come to be the prison authority’s favored holding pen for anarchists and social prisoners, many of whom have reported extreme acts of daily, brutal torture at the hands of their guards.
The grim isolation blocks act as jails within jails, operating under the radar of the EU’s Human Rights Charter that Spain is supposed to adhere to. One anarchist by the name of Gabriel Pombo Da Silva (imprisoned for having a shootout with border officials in Germany) managed to escape from a FIES unit in February 2004, before writing a letter detailing his suffering there. Just four months later, his anarchist comrade Jose Antonio Cano killed himself at one of the isolation blocks in Barcelona after being imprisoned and reportedly tortured there for 12 years.
The attacks against FIES units following the 1999 parcel bombs are just a handful of the FAI’s successful missions. Due to the group's decentralized nature and total lack of leadership or hierarchy, the FAI are collecting a large number of associated cells that extend their reach across the planet. Acts carried out by the FAI's international comrades include the burning down of a school in Indonesia (because "school is a prison"), the (unplanned) shooting of two police officers in Greece, and the arson of a transmitter site near Bath in the UK just last month. The latter left 80,000 homes without TV and radio and caused hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of damage.
"The entertainment industry is an important tool to manipulate human behavior," read the statement the culprits posted online to claim responsibility for the torching at Bath. "Without a steady supply of distractions it would be much harder to persuade people that their lives are satisfactory."
They dedicated the attack to a fellow anarchist named Xosé Tarrío González, who died in a FIES isolation unit in Coruna in 2005.

CCF members Gerasimos Tsakalos and Panagiotis Argirou.
The benefits of having this sprawling, extended family of anarchist cells is that prospective members don’t need to meet or form a bond with anyone in the FAI to join the struggle. Because of that exact makeup, the FAI claim to have never been successfully infiltrated by undercover police agents.
Most notable of the FAI associates is the Greece-based Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (CCF), who effectively joined forces with the FAI in 2011 after a trial involving some of their members. As the FAI had done before them, the CCF launched their first wave of attacks on January 21st, 2008 to show unity with imprisoned anarchists. Members of the CCF detonated gas-canister bombs across the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki. Luxury-car dealerships had their expensive showrooms blown to bits and banks were completely gutted.
The CCF decided not to duck for cover after this first wave of destruction, instead proceeding to detonate bombs outside of police stations in the midst of the Greek riots, set fire to the top floors of the Rabobank building in Utrecht, bomb the Athens law court, bomb the homes of anti-immigration politicans and blow up the HQ of neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn. They even sent explosives in the post to Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi and other European heads of state, but they were intercepted, a lapse in execution you can probably forgive the CCF; they've been pretty busy.
The fire at the Rabobank building in Utrecht.
In one of the documents I've read, the CCF speak the same message as the FAI from the very beginning: "The guerrilla has finally escaped the pages of books dealing with decades past and taken to the streets with ferocity," they say. "Because the urban guerrilla doesn’t offer utopian freedom. She allows access to immediate freedom."
After the collaboration, the FAI/CCF became stronger, more than tripling in size and becoming increasingly recognised for their violent resistance across Europe and much of the world. But despite the size of the groups and the numerous attacks being launched in countries internationally, the FAI still aren't recognized by America. The US has a Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) designation system. In its own words, “FTO designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities.”
The fact that the FAI aren't yet on the list might be due to the fact that—unlike other terrorist organizations on the FTO system—they've yet to murder any civilians or innocent bystanders. Mail handlers having their hands burned by explosives and office workers being cut by flying glass in the crossfire of bomb attacks are of course deeply unsettling events, but evidence suggests that no civilian has ever actually been killed as a direct result of an FAI cell's attack.
Not that all FAI members are averse to the possibility of human “collateral damage.” In an FAI meeting transcript from 2006, a conversation is had between members about the accidental wounding of civilians.
“Why on earth do they [nonviolent anarchists] care about the safety of a postman or a secretary every time a parcel bomb is sent?” says somebody named as Archimede Pitagorico. “We need to show that we're serious, that we don’t hide behind tortuous reasoning and that we don’t have any problem to attack even at risk of life!”
Another member, named Paperina, says: “What a fucking rhetoric!”
“Let me finish,” says Pitagorico. “The problem is that we have too many scruples and that we never go further. We need to be more audacious with explosives and we don’t have to think that we can't hurt a secretary if the target is her boss.”
“It’s a matter of means,” says another member named Quo. “We have to be more selective: guns instead of explosives.”
The meeting goes on to talk about how FAI members have been extremely careful not to harm civilians, and that they’ve even “saved the guilty” by being cautious of the innocent.
With any group as large and geographically dispersed as the FAI, conflicting interests and contradictions are going to crop up every so often. The media have often focused on these inconsistencies more than they have the bigger parts of the puzzle—the mass bombings and gunshots at dawn, not to mention what the evidence points to: there are a growing number of people out there who feel oppressed to the point of taking up arms.

CCF graffiti.
It might be impossible to ever fully understand or report on the FAI with complete and total accuracy, due to the group's nature. They even say themselves that, “Any piece of writing, analysis, or critique that comes out of the FAI will never be a definitive one. Our informal federation is in constant evolution.”
The FAI is essentially the movement that many of these intermingling leftist-insurrectional anarchist cells operate under—they are to CCF, IRF, and the Earth Liberation Front what the PLO was to Al Fatah, PFLP, and PDFLP in the 70s. A quote from FAI members that neatly wraps up the message, struggle, and formation of the FAI: “We are one single thing without knowing one another. In our diversities, we are the hand that will break the chains.”

A cross being chopped down in Russia.
Although you might not have heard about it yet, the FAI has been busy rattling said chains already this year, at least four successful attacks taking place in January alone. These include the firebombing of a bank in Russia, arson attacks on the home of a senior political figure in Indonesia, and the felling of some gigantic wooden religious crosses in Moscow.
In turn, the Italian authorities have stepped up their battle against the FAI, launching an antianarchist effort named Operation Ardire. Ardire charges the Italian police with raiding the houses of suspected anarchists, pulling them out of their beds and throwing them into jail. Bloggers simply showing their approval of an FAI attack have been targeted and locked up, according to the FAI, with some prisoners refused basic rights such as phone calls and visitors.
So don’t be fooled by the mainstream radio silence—the FAI is not some part-time group of activist students getting rowdy on the weekend, but an underground network of committed, established and violent anarchists. If you look at the UK government's current quest to slash benefits while it allows globe-straddling businesses to swerve millions of pounds' worth of corporate taxes, you can see why young people both in the UK and abroad are joining forces with the FAI to take action.
Follow Jake on Twitter: @OiJake


Comments
Finally, someone is doing
Finally, someone is doing something other than breaking windows.
Finally?
Finally?
Reading/comprehension troll.
IGTT 1/10
You're unsure what they're
You're unsure what they're all about, yet label them leftists and terrorists (despite their never targeting civilians). Makes sense.
It's only because of unemployment rates that "youth" take up arms and an acrynym.
What's Vice's bromance with anarchy/ism?
No corporate executive is
No corporate executive is ever a civilian! Since these guys control the generals who control the military, that makes them enemy officers.
statements like this get
statements like this get really funny once you know enough about the law to know what a corporation actually is
They don't mention rights or
They don't mention rights or justice so we don't understand what they're fighting for. And they don't like prius driving Mayors.
What does it all mean? Vice doesn't know. No surprise.
What if no government?
What if no government? Fictional characters will roam literal streets! Did someone honestly write that shit!?
Most of human existence has been lived without government. You're going to have to do better than trying to use movies for real-life counter arguments. Have we truly lost our ability to envision and free think? Oh wait, just liberals.
Vice tryin be all amoral and radical chic, but still mired in conventional moralism. We need big brother to save us from bane! Ahhhh!
Please continue to buy Vice mag for such insightful and illuminating thoughts.
*woosh* <-sound of the point
*woosh* <-sound of the point being made going over your head.
At least when I read it, I saw it as Vice using a little color to explain that the FAI is not a utopian organization, like say, the CNT/FAI was. They don't make arguments about how the world should be run after some revolution. The point of saying "we've all seen Batman films" isn't to say "things will be like the Batman films!" so much as poking a little fun at the portrayal of antistatism in the media. I don't think any serious journalist would cite a fucking Batman movie as evidence that something can't work, and it seems equally doubtful that was the message being conveyed here.
I like your reading better,
I like your reading better, but I don't think that's what the writer was going for.
Weird, I go the impression
Weird, I go the impression this WAS the writer responding. If you got that impression and still replied in this manner IGTT 10/10
Poor scoring. -6 advantage
Poor scoring. -6 advantage denied.!
Wow, asshole. Point wasn't
Wow, asshole. Point wasn't over my head.
I was making fun of how those in the west use points of reference like films to comment on reality. It just shows how distorted and mediated our real experiences are. I hear people around me point out situations by comparing them to film (the organization of appearances). It's like our lived experiences can't even be authentically felt and lived as our own.
I found the article lacking in similar ways, and using the same phrases to stereotype anarchists since the mediated image of the "bomb-thrower" emerged over 100 years ago.
The article suggested: we don't know what they're fighting for, so we should label them leftist terrorists. And they also warned that many youths will be willing to join their nihilist cause just because of high unemployment rates, as if every anarchist is a youth or an anarchist because of a lack of a job.
It's just more liberal morality and shallow perspective in order to make a market of radical chic via shock value (spectacle).
The communiques go into so much more detailed analysis. But, that doesn't sell shit to liberal bros, does it?
"Wow, asshole."
"Wow, asshole."
Someone's touchy. Can't take a joke if it implies you might be fallible?
"Point wasn't over my head. "
Oh yes it was. I'm assuming your next paragraph is a troll/joke, given how little it resembles previous posts, but I'll pretend the rest is serious.
"I found the article lacking in similar ways, and using the same phrases to stereotype anarchists since the mediated image of the 'bomb-thrower' emerged over 100 years ago. "
Shit, we should be so lucky.
"The article suggested: we don't know what they're fighting for"
Except that it does sound like they know, and said as much. The point was that what they're fighting for isn't a vision of a future society.
"so we should label them leftist terrorists."
They might not be leftists, but in msm terms, leftist just means anti-capitalist, and I don't know about the FAI as a whole, but the CCF most certainly actively labels themselves terrorists.
"And they also warned that many youths will be willing to join their nihilist cause just because of high unemployment rates"
And you would say there are no ties between the growing dispossessed and there being more anarchists?
"as if every anarchist is a youth or an anarchist because of a lack of a job. "
Never saw that implication made anywhere, and even if it was, the former isn't far off. I have more friends that used to be anarchists that are anarchists, and nobody is getting younger. That our circles suffer from "activist burnout" (even those that eschew activism) is no secret, and something that needs to be addressed in the open. But that's not the point; if an article said something to the effect of "The failures of the War on Terror are driving the youth away from neo-conservatism to a more liberal idiology," would you say the article was implying that the Democratic party is made entirely of youths or anti-war activists?
"It's just more liberal morality and shallow perspective in order to make a market of radical chic via shock value (spectacle). "
From a money venturing magazine? Color me shocked!
"The communiques go into so much more detailed analysis."
And just when I thought these surprise twists had abated! Can we now move past the fact that yes, this was written by Vice, and instead focus a bit on the content? Like, where these actions have gone right and where they have gone wrong? If they can be emulated, and whether they should?
So first you are
So first you are condescending, and then you attack me personally for a critique of this article and the media as a whole?
Yet, your last point was the entire reason why I began my critique. That was the point: they claimed to have had so much research material and a personal contact to reference yet were left referencing mediations down to hollywood.
And, no, I wasn't trolling. I come here to learn and push my brain, not to take on new roles.
"I don't think any serious
"I don't think any serious journalist . . ."
Well, you're mistaken if you take VICE as serious journalism.
Where are you setting the bar
Where are you setting the bar at?
LOL @ "serious journalism" as
LOL @ "serious journalism" as any sort of compliment or standard
Vice = serious journalism
Vice = serious journalism
I lolled at the bit where he
I lolled at the bit where he called them leftists.
i guess it's tre-cool to not
i guess it's tre-cool to not be a leftist and laugh at anyone who uses the term to describe those who claim not to be leftists, but you're still a fucking leftist.
NO I'M NOT I'M NOT IN YOUR
NO I'M NOT I'M NOT IN YOUR BOXES I CAN'T BE DEFINED I BOUGHT A LOCUST ALBUM AND SABOTAGED PARKING METERS AND THAT MAKES ME BEYOND YOUR DEFINITIONS
The struggle for freedom is
The struggle for freedom is much more than picking which wing of two dominate sects you wish to see rule the world.
rad.
rad.
funny how peeps read things
funny how peeps read things differently. Beneath Vice's "cool & hip" quasi-radicalism, I saw a dangerous narrative being propagated. One of violent/irrational terrorists that Vice doesn't necessarily advocate should be put on the american FTO list, but are just curios to why their not.
Exactly!
Exactly!
And, that person above told me the message of the article was above my head when i summarized it as "we're vice, we don't understand what they fight for so we should label them left wing and terrorists." Those are their conclusions after so much "research" and an exclusive (!) interview with one of THEM. Street cred, bro.
http://www
http://www.federazioneanarchica.org/
wrong fai
wrong fai
Isn't this all old news!
Isn't this all old news! write some shit we don't know about and saye your editorials for Harpers!
Let me take a shot in the
Let me take a shot in the dark here. We're looking at the children of Mafia baby boomers, no? Violent culture with a social conscious...
I don't want to sound too mesmerized, but I am. Although Vice can eat it.
Next thing you know is Vice's
Next thing you know is Vice's attempt a doing anarcho-insurrectionist porn for liberals. Looking at the image from the Voina action, we're quite close to this!
The attack on Adinolfi was a
The attack on Adinolfi was a poor job. Why?
The shooting of Adinolfi VS killing of Nicolas Mockford (Exxon boss):
Adinolfi: open wide, official association with Italian anarchist circles through FAI's communique, led to an all-out State assault on several anarchist milieus, including people who had nothing to do with anarcho-insurrectionalism. Adinolfi's still alive, and will go on with his mass-murdering business in the nuclear industry.
Not sure how big capitalist oligarchy got scared about that, but looking at how determined they still are with the TAV project and other shit like this, it's not very obvious it was a solid attack on their power.
Mockford: State forces have no single clue of who to cast their terrorism upon, since no one can tell who carried the assassination, and what clearly are were the motives (although these are easy to guess). Basically ANYONE can have either done it or paid professionals to do the skin job.
Big capitalists must be scared about it, probably more than in the case of Adinolfi, since the State has proven itself, after a few months, especially in such a heavily-policed and totalitarian city like Brussels, completely POWERLESS into either solving or striking back at their invisible enemies. The perfect crime.
Who's the biggest winner.
You're still a hideously ugly
You're still a hideously ugly mentally ill stalker, an alcoholic, a fascist, and a hack pumping out the artistic equivalent of the juggalo - you've won nothing. Good luck, you big winner, in your continued quest to ruin the lives of *real* poets. if they are really signing up for this (I certainly wasn't!) that's their damage.
And if there's anymore shit, I WILL see you in court, you parasitic piece of dog shit.
Oh yes, this petrified
Oh yes, this petrified deranged piece of dog turd will not rest until every pretty woman or person who's had an interesting life, every person who hasn't been raped and is sexually deformed and hates sex, and person who is not middle class and writes middle class pap that pretends SO HARD to be outre is PUNISHED.
Everyone who this mentally ill person does not understand and who holds beauty (which this crawling rancid filth HATES) must suffer....
And I'll be SHOCKED if this is even a real relationship. As far as I know you're just another whore that is being used right now to justify fascist behavior and give it some kind of "higher" meaning that is actually non-existent except in the minds of sick people who were recently ALSO stalked.
You will be "committed" soon
You will be "committed" soon enough!!!
Lead with your chin, jay leno
Lead with your chin, jay leno. the owrld needs more ignorant tourist whores like you to help them hate real women more effectively. you're a real winner.
And for all those historians
And for all those historians out there, you might want to recall how this fraud lists the accomplishments of her spouse as her own. this is what this intellectually singel cell parasite does...this is how it operates.
AND PS---NOTHING JUSTIFIES what you've done. neither your thrid grade level art project or the fact that you got somebody to stick their dick in you. the fact remains that next to me you are nothing. Hope you enjoy your pathetic revenge porn tho, it's truly beautiful. be very proud.
What exactly did he/she do???
What exactly did he/she do??? Who and what the fuck are you garbling about?
Alcoholic yes, mentally ill
Alcoholic yes, mentally ill most probably, but I'm cuter than you. Furthermore, according to André Breton, what those guys (gals? queers?) did to Mockford actually is the ultimate form of poetry!
Viva surrrealism, as the culprit of breaking down the fabric of social reality, dawg.
You're not cute. You're
You're not cute. You're average to butt ugly. But what's ugliest about you is what's inside....
Too easy. You lack finesse,
Too easy. You lack finesse, troll!
Vive la megachurch ! Vive la
Vive la megachurch ! Vive la colonialism ! Vive la cultural hegemony ! Vive la mediocrity ! Vive la woman-hating ! Vive la Dworkin ! Vive la B movie romanticism of mental illness !
Where I live, that's called
Where I live, that's called "nationalism"... but wtf Dworkin has anything to do in there?
Add new comment