Iran’s Sponsorship of Terror

State Sponsor of Terror
Patrons of Palestinian Terror
Compensating American Victims
Targeting Americans
Proxies on Israel’s Borders
Plotting Against Enemies
A Global Terror Network

State Sponsor of Terror

Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran has continued its terrorist-related activity, including support for Hezbollah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq, and throughout the Middle East. Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) to provide support to terrorist organizations, provide cover for associated covert operations, and create instability in the region. Iran has acknowledged the involvement of the IRGC-QF in the Iraq and Syria conflicts, and the IRGC-QF is Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad. In April 2019, the Secretary of State designated the IRGC, including the Quds Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Iran also used regional proxy forces to provide deniability in an attempt to shield it from accountability for its aggressive policies.

Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Iran has supplied Hezbollah with thousands of rockets, missiles, and small arms in direct violation of UNSCR 1701. Israeli security officials and politicians expressed concerns that Iran was supplying Hezbollah with advanced weapons systems and technologies, as well as assisting the group in creating infrastructure that would permit it to indigenously produce rockets and missiles to threaten Israel from Lebanon and Syria. Iran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Hezbollah and trained thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran. Hezbollah fighters have been used extensively in Syria to support the Assad regime. In Bahrain, Iran has continued to provide weapons, support, and training to local Shia militant groups, including the al-Ashtar Brigades. In Yemen, Iran has provided weapons, support, and training to the Houthis, who have engaged in terrorist attacks against regional targets.

Iran also provided financial and material support to Hamas, various militant groups in Bahrain, and Houthi rebels in Yemen. In June 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated that, in his opinion, Iranian involvement in Iraq was helping the United States in the fight against ISIS. Kerry stated, using a different name for the terrorist group, that “I can tell you that Iran in Iraq has been in certain ways helpful, and they clearly are focused on ISIL-Daesh.” Kerry added that Iran and the United States seem to have common goals in Iraq of defeating the Islamic State (CNN, June 28, 2016).

The Times of London reported that “hundreds of Taliban fighters are receiving advanced training from special forces at military academies in Iran as part of a significant escalation of support for the insurgents.” The report added, “The scale, quality, and length of the training is unprecedented and marks not only a shift in the proxy conflict between the U.S. and Iran inside Afghanistan but also a potential change in Iran’s ability and will to affect the outcome of the Afghan war.

On August 7, 2018, Nasser Shabani, a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, admitted that Iran ordered Houthi rebels to attack two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea on July 25, 2018.

On October 30, 2018, the Danish government accused Iran’s intelligence agents of plotting the assassination of an Iranian opposition leader there in September. Earlier, French officials concluded Tehran was behind a plot to attack an Iranian opposition group meeting in Paris in late June.

 In 2019, the Dutch government accused Iran of conspiring to murder two Iranian dissidents in the Netherlands.

Patrons of Palestinian Terror

In 2019, Iran continued to support Hamas and other designated Palestinian terrorist groups, including Palestine Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. These Palestinian terrorist groups were behind numerous deadly attacks originating in Gaza and the West Bank, including attacks against Israeli civilians in the Sinai Peninsula.

The Iranian government maintains a robust offensive cyber program and has sponsored cyber attacks against foreign governments and private sector entities.

Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior Al-Qa’ida (AQ) members residing in the country and has refused to identify members in its custody publicly. Iran has allowed AQ facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran since at least 2009, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and Syria.

The Iranian government continued supporting terrorist plots to attack Iranian dissidents in several countries in continental Europe. In recent years, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Albania have all either arrested or expelled Iranian government officials implicated in various terrorist plots in their respective territories. Denmark similarly recalled its ambassador from Tehran after learning of an Iran-backed plot to assassinate an Iranian dissident in its country.

Compensating American Victims

The Justice Department announced in January 2021 that the United States had collected $7 million of Iranian funds that will be allocated to provide compensation to American victims of international state-sponsored terrorism.

“The funds subject to today’s stipulation had been destined to benefit criminal actors who engaged in an elaborate scheme to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, one of the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General David Burns of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

The $7 million was allocated to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, which Congress established to provide compensation to certain individuals who were injured in acts of international state-sponsored terrorism, including victims of the 1979 U.S. embassy hostage situation in Iran, among others.

Targeting Americans

In August 2022, the Department of Justice charged a member of the IRGC based in Tehran, Shahram Poursafi, with plotting to kill former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Poursafi reportedly agreed to pay $300,000 to have Bolton murdered and offered $1 million to kill former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Pompeo and another former State Department official, Brian Hook, have security guards due to “serious and credible” threats from Iran.

In testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee on November 15, 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, “The Iranian regime across multiple vectors has become more aggressive, more brazen and more dangerous” over the last 18 months. He cited Iran’s attempted cyberattack on the Boston Children’s Hospital, plot to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton, and plans to kidnap journalist and dissident Masih Alinejad. “If that’s not enough to convince us that the regime is a threat, I don’t know what is,” Wray said.

The same day Wray testified, Israel revealed an Iranian plot to kill Itzik Moshe, an Israeli living in Georgia. According to the Times of Israel, “Under Iranian direction, a Pakistani team affiliated with al-Qaeda traveled to Tbilisi to gather intelligence and prepare for it,” and was discovered by Georgian security forces. The Pakistani was arrested along with two Georgian-Iranian dual citizens, allegedly responsible for providing weapons to the hit team.

In January 2024, an “Iran-based narco-trafficker” was charged with recruiting a team of gunmen in 2021 to assassinate a man and woman in Maryland, one of whom defected from Iran.

The U.S. arrested a Pakistani national with ties to Iran in August 2024. He was charged with plotting to murder current and former U.S. government officials, including former President Donald Trump. 

In October 2024, U.S. prosecutors charged Ruhollah Bazghandi, Seyed Mohammad Forouzan, and two other Iranian nationals with plotting to assassinate human rights activist Masih Alinejad, a prominent critic of the Iranian regime living in exile in New York.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said: “Today’s indictment makes plain that the Iranian regime for years has been behind a violent campaign to stalk, intimidate, and arrange the killing of an American dissident on U.S. soil for bravely speaking up for the rights of the Iranian people. The Department is committed to exposing and holding accountable those in Tehran who believe they can hide their hand in carrying out such reprehensible activities.”

Bazghandi, a Brigadier General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and former chief in an IRGC Intelligence Organization counterintelligence unit, allegedly directed and oversaw the murder-for-hire plot. According to U.S. officials, he communicated with the hired network, monitored Alinejad’s movements, and tracked the assassination effort. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned Bazghandi twice for his role in lethal targeting and assassination plots against Iranian dissidents.

Forouzan, a self-described member of the Basij, a paramilitary arm of the IRGC, is accused of aiding the plot. Both men are on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

A year later, Iranian Rafat Amirov and Georgian Polad Omarov, who had also been indicted, were sentenced to 25 years for hiring a hitman to kill Alinejad. The two men were crime bosses in the Russian mob who were paid $500,000 for the job. 

Proxies on Israel’s Borders

In 2023, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies published a report identifying 19 terrorist organizations supported by Iran on Israel’s borders:

• Abd Al-Qadir Al-Husseini Brigades
• Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
• Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq
• Badr Organization
• Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
• Hamas
• Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba’
• Hezbollah
• Islamic Jihad
• Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force
• Kataib Hezbollah
• Lions’ Den
• Liwa Al-Quds
• Liwa Fatemiyoun
• Liwa Zeynabiyoun
• Palestinian Mujahideen Movement
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command
• Popular Resistance Committees

Plotting Against Enemies

Iran is also known to assassinate its enemies and dissidents. In 2011, for example, U.S. authorities charged two Iranian men with plotting to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

On February 4, 2021, Iranian diplomat Assadolah Assadi was convicted of attempted terrorism by a court in Belgium for his role in the 2018 plot to bomb an Iranian opposition group in France. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

A day later, a report said Ethiopia arrested 16 suspects from an Iranian cell who were planning an attack against the United Arab Emirates embassy in Addis Ababa.

In March, Indian intelligence concluded the  Iranian Quds Force was behind the bomb that exploded outside the Israeli Embassy in Delhi on January 29, 2021. “That the bomb was not of high intensity, with no human targets in mind, was perhaps because the Iranians did not want to run afoul of a friendly nation like India. But the message was clear and the threat is real,” said a counterterror expert.

German police seized documents from a car used as a mobile intelligence station by Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian spy chief who was sentenced in February 2021 to 20 years in prison for masterminding a failed bomb attack in Paris in 2018. Jake Wallis Simons reported that the officers found a notebook with bomb-making and fieldwork instructions and records of trips he took to 289 locations across Europe over four years to meet agents. Documents indicated Iran had agents in at least 22 cities and plans for terror attacks using explosives, acid, and toxic pathogenic substances.

Receipts for expenses and reimbursements, records of spy salaries, and details of computers issued to agents were found, along with six mobile phones, a laptop, external hard drives, and USB sticks containing intelligence training manuals, two GPS navigation devices, and more than 30,000 Euros in cash.

In April 2022,  Mossad agents in Iran captured and interrogated an Iranian who was plotting to kill a worker at the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul, an American general stationed in Germany, and a journalist in France. The Quds Force, the IRGC branch responsible for overseas operations, planned to carry out the assassinations via drug cartels.

In September 2022, the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, said Iran continues to attack Israelis and Jews worldwide and that Israel had “recently thwarted dozens of terrorist attacks abroad.”

In March 2023, Greek authorities revealed the arrest of two Pakistani terrorists planning to attack Jewish targets in Athens. An Iranian was reportedly behind the plot, which involved using poison gas to flood the restaurant next to the Chabad house in Athens and harm as many Israelis as possible. The terrorists were promised 16,000 euros for each Israeli victim.

“The Mossad assisted Athens in this serious case, including exposing the connections to Iran of the two Pakistani suspects who were arrested. After the investigation of the suspects began in Greece, the Mossad assisted in dismantling the terrorists’ intelligence infrastructure, their methods of operation, and their connection to Iran. The suspects were part of a wide Iranian network operating from Iran and in many countries. This is another example of how Iran is trying to use terrorism against Israeli and Jewish targets overseas,” the Mossad said in a statement.

As of 2023, Iran had reportedly assassinated at least 20 opponents abroad and killed hundreds in bombings of foreign military, diplomatic, and cultural facilities. At least 88 attacks or plots were uncovered:

• 21 targeted Iranian dissidents
• 35 targeted Israelis or Jews
• 25 plots were against Western targets
• 8 plots were against Arab or other regional targets

A Global Terror Network

In February 2024, an Iranian couple, believed to be working for Iranian intelligence, was deported after being suspected of a plot to kill three Swedish Jews, one of whom was a dual U.S. citizen.

In October 2025, the Mossad revealed new details about a global terror network directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which it says has been responsible for multiple attacks on Jewish and Israeli sites in Western countries since October 7, 2023.

According to Mossad, the network is led by senior IRGC-Quds Force commander Sardar Ammar, who oversees about 11,000 operatives engaged in covert operations. The group has conducted arson and vandalism attacks on Jewish institutions and businesses to intimidate Jewish communities and create conditions for potential escalations. It has also planned attacks on Jewish communal leaders.

Among several plots exposed through cooperation with foreign intelligence services, Mossad highlighted three major cases:

• Greece (2024): Seven suspects, including two Iranians, were arrested for arson attacks on a synagogue and an Israeli-owned hotel in Athens.
• Germany (2025): A man was arrested in Denmark for spying on Jewish sites and individuals in Berlin on behalf of Iranian intelligence.
• Australia (2024): Iran was blamed for two arson attacks on Jewish targets in Melbourne and Sydney, carried out by criminal gangs; Canberra later expelled Iran’s ambassador.

Mossad said the network hid Iran’s role by using non-Iranian proxies, organized crime groups, and strict compartmentalization. Intelligence officials described many of the operations as amateurish and poorly executed, despite the network’s broad reach.

Sources: U.S. State Department.
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