As the U.S. considers its next steps, many are re-evaluating Iran’s decades-long history of targeting Americans globally.
Senator Tom Cotton stated that Iran has been waging a continuous war against the U.S., Israel, and the civilized world since 1979.
Iran’s attacks on Americans have included direct and proxy attacks on U.S. forces, support for terrorist organizations, and assassination attempts.
In 1979, at the start of the Islamic Revolution, radical students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini disregarded international calls to release the hostages, who were eventually freed after 444 days.
In 2023, Sayyed Issa Tabatabai, representative of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Lebanon, admitted in an interview with IRNA that Iran was involved in the 1983 bombings in Lebanon that killed Americans.
The U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut resulted in 63 deaths, including 17 Americans. A suicide truck bombing at the barracks of multinational forces in Lebanon killed 220 Marines, 18 U.S. Navy sailors, and three U.S. Army soldiers, along with 58 French troops.
In the IRNA interview, Tabatabai said he provided support for “martyrdom operations” targeting Americans and Israelis in Lebanon, acting on a fatwa from Ayatollah Khomeini. However, IRNA reportedly removed the claim about the fatwa shortly after publishing the interview, according to a report and translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
On June 25, 1996, a truck bomb exploded outside the Khobar Towers. Al Jazeera reported that a U.S. court in 2006 held the Iranian government responsible for the attack, which was carried out by Saudi members of Hezbollah, and ordered Iran to pay $254 million to the victims.
According to a 2019 Pentagon report cited by , Iran was responsible for the deaths of 603 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, representing 17% of U.S. deaths in the country during that time.
Some U.S. victims have successfully demonstrated Iran’s connections to their adversaries in court.
In 2022, family members and victims won a case against the , using the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to hold the regime accountable for supporting terrorists who killed or injured 30 U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal, testified in support of the victims. He told Digital that Iran’s support for the Taliban and al Qaeda significantly impacted the deaths and injuries of American soldiers and civilians, providing money, weapons, training, intelligence, and safe haven to Taliban subgroups across Afghanistan. Roggio stated that Iran’s support for the Taliban was second only to Pakistan’s and facilitated nearly every Taliban attack on U.S. personnel.
In 2022, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that Iran owed damages to the families and victims of 40 U.S. service members who were injured or killed in Iraq due to Iran’s support of terrorism there.
In retaliation for the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran targeted two U.S. with surface-to-surface missiles in 2020.
In January 2024, three Americans were killed and 25 wounded in a drone attack on a Jordanian outpost near the Syrian border. Two Iranians, one a dual U.S. citizen, were charged in connection with the attack.
At the time, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul said Iranian proxies had increased attacks on U.S. troops after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7.
Roggio reported that Iranian-backed militias launched three drones at Ain al Assad, a U.S. base in western Iraq, on June 14. The drones were shot down before reaching the base.
Roggio stated that the drone attack appeared to be an unsanctioned strike by an unnamed Iranian militia, as no group claimed responsibility and there were no follow-up strikes. He believes Iran wants to deter U.S. intervention, as the U.S. military could strike the underground nuclear facility at Fordow.
Between October 2023 and August 2024, Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq militias launched 180 attacks against U.S. forces in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan. Roggio estimates that these Iraqi militias have killed more than 600 U.S. service members over the decades.
, a retired FBI agent and private investigator, disappeared from an Iranian island in 2007 and was later declared dead in 2020 while in Iranian custody. His family blames the Iranian regime for his capture and imprisonment.
Last year, Iran executed Jamshid Sharmahd, who had survived a previous assassination attempt in California where an Iranian agent was convicted for planning his murder. He was kidnapped by the Iranian regime in Dubai in 2020 during a business trip.
The history of prisoner exchanges between Iran and the U.S. dates back to 1979. The most recent exchange, in September 2023, involved five Americans imprisoned in Iran for five Iranians detained in the U.S., with the U.S. releasing $6 billion in frozen assets in South Korea as part of the deal.
In November, the Department of Justice announced charges against an Iranian citizen and two New Yorkers for their involvement in a murder-for-hire plot targeting multiple American citizens, including President .
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ’ Bret Baier that Trump . “They want to kill him. He’s enemy number one.”
‘ Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.
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