by Jerry Dunleavy
Iran killed hundreds of Americans across the Middle East, with its Hezbollah proxy being the most effective terrorist group against the U.S. prior to Al-Qaeda's terror attacks on 9/11.
The revolutionary Iranian regime — which may possibly find itself in a war with the United States in the coming days — has positioned itself as an adversary of the U.S. ever since it came into power decades ago in 1979.
President Donald Trump appears to be moving toward striking Iran, with the U.S. military moving significant military assets into the region, insisting he would prefer to strike a deal with the Iranian regime but that, if it comes to war, his top general has told him “it will be something easily won.”
Much of the discussion around possible conflict has focused on the Iranian regime’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles, and its support of regional terrorist proxies — but not as much attention has been placed on a host of Iranian-directed terrorist attacks against U.S. troops, diplomats, and citizens which have killed hundreds of Americans. Iran has also sought to carry out a number of attempted plots on U.S. soil as well.
“Hezbollah has been involved in numerous anti-U.S. terrorist attacks, including the suicide truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, and the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in September 1984, as well as the hijacking of TWA 847 in 1985 and the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia in 1996,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says.
Iranian regime uses terror proxies to target Americans across the Middle East
Radical Iranian students and operatives backed by since-deceased Ayatollah Khomeini took dozens of American embassy staffers hostage in 1979 and held them for 444 days.
Since then, Iranian-backed terrorists have been determined to be behind the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon which killed 241 U.S. service members, as well as the deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon that year. That attack killed 17 Americans. The Iranian regime was behind the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia which killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel.
Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) played a key role in fueling the deadly insurgency in Iraq after the U.S. invaded in 2003, with a spokesman for the Defense Department stating in 2019 that Iran was responsible for “at least 603” U.S. service member deaths.
There is also significant evidence that Iran collaborated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda to carry out attacks against U.S. troops, international coalition forces, and the Afghan republic’s military in an effort to eject the West from Afghanistan.
The State Department also assessed that, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, "Iran has allowed al-Qaeda facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran since at least 2009, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters” and that “senior AQ leaders continued to reside in Iran and facilitate terrorist operations from there."
Just the News reported this week on how al-Qaeda leader Saif Al-Adel — the successor to al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri — had been shielded by the Iranian government for decades and is believed to currently run the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks under the protection of Tehran.
The Treasury Department has noted that “until September 11, 2001, Hezbollah was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist organization.”
Iranian regime has sought to conduct kidnappings and assassinations on U.S. soil
The Justice Department announced in 2011 that Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen who held an Iranian passport, had been arrested in an Iranian military-linked plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. at Café Milano in Washington, D.C.
Then-Attorney General Eric Holder said at the time that Arbabsiar “is accused of working with members of an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to devise an international murder-for-hire scheme targeting the Saudi Arabian Ambassador.” Arbabsiar pleaded guilty in 2012 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The Justice Department announced in 2021 that “Iranian intelligence services allegedly plotted to kidnap a U.S. journalist and human rights activist” — Masih Alinejad — “from New York City for rendition to Iran.” A number of those involved in the plot were convicted, while others remain at large in Iran.
The DOJ again announced in 2024 that another man, Carlisle Rivera, had been hired “to murder Masih Alinejad on instructions from high-ranking members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” He pleaded guilty.
Federal prosecutors have also alleged that two Iranian-linked plots to assassinate then-candidate Donald Trump — including one plot directly linked to Iranian intelligence services — were launched in 2024 as Iran sought to meddle in the election to stop Trump’s return to the White House.
The Justice Department filed charges against Pakistani national Asif Merchant and against Afghan national Farhad Shakeri in 2024 for their alleged roles in Iranian-backed assassination plots. The former defendant’s murky plot seemed to target Trump, while the latter defendant’s more sophisticated plot was definitely aimed at the now-president.
Merchant has pleaded not guilty, and the trial against him is slated to begin late this month. Shakeri remains at large in Iran.
U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut: 2,000 pounds of explosives
The CIA noted that “a suicide bomber crashed a truck into the front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and detonated 2,000 pounds of explosives” in April 1983, and that “the massive blast killed 63 people, including 17 Americans, eight of whom were CIA officers, and wounded more than 100 others.”
“The Islamic Jihad Organization, which later became part of Hezbollah, claimed responsibility,” the agency said. “The terrorists targeted the Embassy in an effort to force Americans to leave the country.”
A federal court ruling from 2005 noted that now-former Ambassador Robert Oakley — who had coordinated the State Department's counterterrorism efforts and was tasked with figuring out who conducted the 1983 embassy bombing, testified that it was"very clear that Islamic Jihad [Hezbollah] was behind the bombing in 1983."
The judge noted that Oakley further had "confiden[ce] that the government of Iran was involved directly in the Hezbollah organization, which was created, armed, trained, protected, [and] provided technical assistance by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards."
The State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1983 report — released in 1984 — assessed at the time that “most instances of state-supported terrorism occurred in Lebanon” and that “there, radical Lebanese Shias, using the nom de guerre Islamic Jihad, operated with Iranian support and encouragement from Syrian-controlled territory.”
The department found that these Iranian-backed terrorist groups “were responsible for the suicide bombing attacks against the U.S. Embassy and the headquarters of the US and French contingents of the Multinational Force in Beirut.”
“It turns out that the embassy was hit essentially by Hezbollah, even though that was not clear at the time,” Robert Dillon, the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon at the time of the attack, said in 2013. “Hezbollah had Iranian support. It was simply a blow at the most visible symbol of American presence. … My outrage over Lebanon has shaped my career.”
The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, founded by retired foreign service officers, says that “the attack is thought of as the beginning of anti-U.S. attacks from Islamist groups.”
An even deadlier Iranian-backed Hezbollah attack on the U.S. in Lebanon was still in the offing.
Marine barracks bombing in Beirut: “Over 12,000 pounds of TNT”
The U.S. Marine Corps memorial website says that “220 Marines, 18 U.S. Navy sailors, and 3 U.S. Army soldiers lost their lives in the Marine Barracks at the Beirut Airport” in October 1983.
The Defense Department’s December 1983 "Report of the DoD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Act" assessed that “a truck laden with the equivalent of over 12,000 pounds of TNT crashed through the perimeter of the compound of the U.S. contingent of the Multinational Force at Beirut International Airport” and that “the force of the explosion destroyed the building resulting in the deaths of 241 U.S. military personnel.”
The Pentagon report said that the FBI’s Forensic Laboratory “described the terrorist bomb as the largest conventional blast ever seen by the FBI's forensic explosive experts.” The Pentagon said its commission “concludes that international terrorist acts endemic to the Middle East are indicative of an alarming world-wide phenomenon that poses an increasing threat to U.S. personnel and facilities.”
Judge Royce Lamberth issued a 2003 court opinion where “the Court finds that it is beyond question that Hezbollah and its agents received massive material and technical support from the Iranian government” and that “the sophistication demonstrated” in the attack along with “the devastating effect of the detonation” made it “highly unlikely that this attack could have resulted in such loss of life without the assistance of regular military forces, such as those of Iran.”
Lamberth ruled that “the complicity of Iran in the 1983 attack was established conclusively at trial by the testimony” of Admiral James Lyons, who had been the deputy chief of naval operations for plans, policy and operation at the time of the attack.
“It is clear that the formation and emergence of Hezbollah as a major terrorist organization is due to the government of Iran,” Lamberth ruled. “Hezbollah presently receives extensive financial and military technical support from Iran, which funds and supports terrorist activities. The primary agency through which the Iranian government both established and exercised operational control over Hezbollah was the” Iranian MOIS.
Lamberth said that the Iranian ministry “acted as a conduit for the Islamic Republic of Iran's provision of funds to Hezbollah, provided explosives to Hezbollah and, at all times relevant to these proceedings, exercised operational control over Hezbollah.”
Khobar Towers bombing was “largest non-nuclear explosion ever up to that time”
Then-Defense Secretary William Perry published a report later in 1996 which said that “Khobar Towers is a residential compound built by the Saudi Government near Dhahran that housed the residential quarters of almost 3,000 U. S. military personnel” along with military personnel from the United Kingdom, France, and Saudi Arabia. Perry said that “on Tuesday, June 25, 1996, a fuel truck parked next to the northern perimeter fence at the Khobar Towers complex” and that “Air Force guards began to evacuate the building, but were unable to complete this task before a tremendous explosion occurred.”
“The blast completely destroyed the northern face of the building, blew out windows from surrounding buildings, and was heard for miles,” the defense secretary said. “Nineteen American servicemen were killed and hundreds more were seriously injured [...] In addition, many Saudis and other nationals were injured.”
A federal court ruling said that “the investigation determined that the force of the explosion was the equivalent of 20,000 pounds of TNT” and that “the Defense Department said that it was the largest non-nuclear explosion ever up to that time.”
Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced in June 2001 — just a few months before 9/11 — that a federal grand jury had charged “fourteen individuals with murder, attempted murder of federal employees, conspiracy to commit murder, and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction” related to the Khobar Towers attack which had killed nineteen U.S. airmen and wounded 372 other Americans.
“Named as defendants are the leader of the Saudi Hezbollah terrorist organization, as well as several prominent members, including the head of the Saudi Hezbollah's military wing, along with members of terrorist cells in Saudi Arabia who planned and carried out the Khobar attack,” Ashcroft said.
The attorney general added that “the indictment explains that elements of the Iranian government inspired, supported, and supervised members of the Saudi Hezbollah” and that “the charged defendants reported their surveillance activities to Iranian officials and were supported and directed in those activities by Iranian officials.”
The FBI said that month that Iranian officials were kept apprised of planning for the attack, and that, in 1995, “an Iranian military officer directed” Hezbollah members “to conduct surveillance on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia for sites of possible future attacks against Americans.” The indictment also said that “the attack would serve Iran by driving the Americans from the Gulf region.”
Lamberth ruled in 2006 that “the attack was carried out by individuals recruited principally by a senior official of the IRGC, Brigadier General Ahmed Sharifi” and that Sharifi “planned the operation and recruited individuals for the operation at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria.” The judge also concluded that this Iranian general “provided the passports, the paperwork, and the funds for the individuals who carried out the attack.”
The judge also ruled that “the terrorist attack on the Khobar Towers was approved by Ayatollah Khameini, the Supreme leader of Iran at the time” and that “it was also approved and supported by the Iranian Minister of Intelligence and Security at the time, Ali Fallahian, who was involved in providing intelligence security support for the operation. Fallahian’s representative in Damascus, a man named Nurani, also provided support for the operation.”
“The six individuals also indicated that the selection of the target and the authorization to proceed was done collectively by Iran, MOIS, and IRGC, though the actual preparation and carrying out of the attack was done by the IRGC,” the judge ruled.
Qassem Soleimani and the IRGC helped kill over 600 U.S. troops in Iraq
The Iranian regime — in particular the IRGC — was also responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq through the provision of explosives and weapons to Shiite terrorist insurgents in the country, according to multiple U.S. government assessments.
General Joe Dunford testified to the Senate in 2015 that “I know the total number of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that were killed by Iranian activities, and the number has been recently reported as about 500. We were not always able to attribute the casualties that we had to Iranian activity, although many times we suspected it was Iranian activity, even though we did not necessarily have the forensics to support that.”
Later that year, U.S. Central Command spokeswoman Major Genieve David echoed the estimate of 500 Americans killed through a hidden Iranian hand.
“It is important to understand that the CENTCOM statistics on EFP [explosively formed penetrator] detonations are a subset of all the Iranian activities estimated to have killed approximately 500 U.S. troops in Iraq during OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom],” David said at the time.
A spokesperson for the Defense Department revealed in 2019 that the Iranian regime was behind the deaths of “at least” 603 troops in Iraq, and that “the casualties were the result of explosively formed penetrators, other improvised explosive devices, improvised rocket-assisted munitions, rockets, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, small-arms, sniper, and other attacks in Iraq.”
“In Iraq, I can announce today, based on declassified U.S. military reports, that Iran is responsible for the deaths of at least 608 American service members,” then-Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook also said in 2019. “This accounts for 17 percent of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. This death toll is in addition to the many thousands of Iraqis killed by the IRGC’s proxies.”
The Defense Intelligence Agency assessed later that year that “during the Iraq War, Iran established strong ties with Shia militia groups, some of which have received Iranian financial backing for decades” and that “using Iranian-provided weapons, these groups were responsible for at least 603 U.S. personnel killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.”
The U.S. military struck and killed IRGC-Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani in early January 2020, with the Defense Department stating that “General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.”
A couple weeks after deadly Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, former State Department official Nathan Sales stressed to Congress that “the IRGC was responsible for killing 603 American soldiers in Iraq, in part due to the advanced explosively formed penetrators it provided to its terror proxies in the country” and that “that is one-sixth of all U.S. fatalities during the war in Iraq.”
Iran helped the Taliban kill Americans
A report from the U.S. military’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization assessed in 2006 that “the smuggling of Iranian weapons to Afghan insurgent groups is simply another tool to leverage against foreign threats while maintaining overall cooperation in the stabilization of Afghanistan.” The report said at the time that Iran’s goal was to “actively extend Iranian influence and maintain strategic awareness of important actors at the state, substate, and non-state levels.”
Thomas Joscelyn, then a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in 2010 that it had been reported that “based on Taliban sources, that the Iranians are paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers” and that “we learn that the going rate is $1,000 per dead American and $6,000 for each American vehicle that is destroyed.”
“This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Iran paying out rewards for dead Americans,” the FDD terrorism analyst added. “When WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of U.S. military documents earlier this year, a number of intelligence reports pointing to collusion between Iran and the Taliban (as well as al-Qaeda) came to light.”
The Defense Intelligence Agency assessed in 2019 that “since at least 2007, Iran has provided calibrated support — including weapons, training, and funding — to the Taliban” in an effort to “counter U.S. and Western influence in Afghanistan … and increase Tehran’s influence in any post-reconciliation government.”
It was reported by CNN in 2020 that U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that the Iranian regime had offered bounties to Taliban fighters to encourage them to target U.S. and coalition troops, with Iran making the bounty payments to the Haqqani Network after successful Taliban attacks on troops in Afghanistan.
Long War Journal senior editor Bill Roggio tweeted in 2022 that “we found evidence that Iran’s IRGC was providing funds to Taliban and al-Qaeda-led terror cells operating in and around Kabul.”
“These IRGC-supported cells were known as the Kabul Attack Network,” Roggio said. “The IRGC was financing some of the most spectacular attacks in the heart of Afghanistan, against U.S., NATO and Afghan security forces, as well as civilians.”
The Long War Journal analyst said that “Iran found common ground with the Taliban, al-Qaeda, & other groups as they all wanted to kill & wound U.S. servicemen, & drive up the cost for the U.S. to remain in Afghanistan. Iran feared the U.S. on its eastern & western borders (Afghanistan & Iraq), & wanted the U.S. out.”
“Iran (along with Pakistan) succeeded in helping the Taliban/Syndicate wear down the U.S. and force it to abandon Afghanistan,” Roggio concluded. “Iran achieved its primary goal – force the U.S. to leave.”
The Taliban — which protected al-Qaeda before and after 9/11 — rapidly took over Afghanistan in August 2021 amid a chaotic U.S. withdrawal and evacuation.
Jerry Dunleavy
Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/iran-waged-decades-long-revolutionary-terror-war-against-us-middle-east-and
No comments:
Post a Comment