Iran as a Global Threat: A 26-Year Record of State-Sponsored Attacks

In recent months, a revisionist narrative has taken hold across media, social media, and Democrat lawmakers, one that attempts to recast Iran as the victim in a conflict it has spent decades fueling. They claim that Tehran was subjected to unprovoked aggression, that the threat it posed was exaggerated or manufactured, and that the Trump administration constructed a pretext for war.

But this argument depends on ignoring a well-documented history of Iranian state-sponsored violence. Over the past 26 years, Iran has demonstrated a clear and sustained pattern of launching direct attacks or directing proxy militias to carry out attacks on infrastructure, international shipping, and foreign forces.

What follows is a chronological account of confirmed Iranian attacks, both direct and through proxies, drawn from Pentagon data, federal court rulings, 9/11 Commission findings, State Department terrorist designations, Australian Security Intelligence Organization assessments, and allied government intelligence reports.

The record spans 26 years, more than 20 countries, and thousands of casualties. The victims were not exclusively American or Israeli. They were Lebanese, Saudi, Yemeni, Kuwaiti, Emirati, Bahraini, Qatari, Iraqi, Afghan, Australian, Cypriot, and Jordanian.

The Early Record: 2000–2003: The period most revisionists ignore begins before the Iraq War, before the Trump administration, and before any of the policy decisions now cited as Iranian grievances.

In October 2000, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Iran was directly involved in establishing al-Qaeda’s Yemen network through Hezbollah, providing training and logistics support that contributed to the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor, which killed 17 American sailors. The following year, the 9/11 Commission found strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al-Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks, with at least eight of the future hijackers passing through Iranian territory between October 2000 and February 2001.

In August 2001, an Iran-backed Hamas terrorist killed three Americans in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem. In July 2002, a Hamas bomb at Hebrew University killed five Americans and four others. In January 2002, Israeli naval commandos intercepted the Karine-A in the Red Sea, a vessel carrying more than 50 tons of Iranian weapons and explosives bound for Palestinian terrorist organizations. In October 2003, Iran-backed operatives killed three U.S. diplomatic personnel in Gaza.

The most consequential phase of Iran’s proxy war against the United States unfolded in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. The U.S. Department of Defense documented that Iran-backed militias, principally Kataib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, both trained, armed, and directed by the IRGC Quds Force, were responsible for at least 603 American troop deaths, roughly one in every six American combat fatalities during that period. The weapons of choice were explosively formed penetrators, armor-piercing devices manufactured in Iran and smuggled across the border.

In January 2007, IRGC-linked operatives disguised as U.S. soldiers entered a compound in Karbala and killed five American troops. U.S. satellite imagery later revealed that a full-scale mockup of the compound had been constructed inside Iran for training purposes. The State Department later offered a $15 million reward for information on the IRGC Quds Force commander who planned the attack. Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq alone conducted more than 6,000 attacks on U.S. and coalition forces between 2006 and 2011, by the group’s own accounting.

In February 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was killed along with 21 others in a Beirut truck bombing. The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon subsequently convicted a Hezbollah operative in the killing.

In the summer of 2006, Iran moved beyond proxy direction into direct operational involvement. During the Second Lebanon War, IRGC operatives were assessed to have directly participated in Hezbollah’s rocket operations against Israel, with hundreds of Revolutionary Guard personnel present at Hezbollah outposts. Iran supplied the long-range missiles that struck Israeli cities.

Between 2011 and 2013, Iran sponsored at least 30 terrorist attacks in countries with no military involvement in the Middle East — Thailand, India, Nigeria, Kenya, and others. In October 2011, the FBI and DEA disrupted an IRGC Quds Force-directed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, with the Justice Department confirming the operation was recruited, funded, and directed by senior Quds Force officials, including knowledge at the level of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. Plans also included bombing the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington.

Syria, Yemen, and the Expansion of the Proxy Network: Beginning in 2012, Iran deployed Hezbollah, Afghan and Pakistani Shia militias, and IRGC regular forces into Syria to preserve the Assad regime, spending an estimated $16 billion through 2020. The IRGC had been supporting Yemen’s Houthi movement since at least 2011.

After the Houthis seized Sanaa in September 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government from power in 2015, Iran escalated arms deliveries, providing ballistic missiles, drones, and anti-ship weapons. In September 2019, Houthi forces struck the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, cutting the kingdom’s oil output by 50 percent, the largest disruption to global energy markets since Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Beginning in November 2023, the Houthis launched the most sustained attack on international commercial shipping since World War II. By March 2025, they had struck more than 130 vessels, sinking four, seizing one, and killing at least eight seafarers. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency recovered Iran’s Tolu-4 missile engine from a struck Norwegian vessel, and U.S. officials confirmed Iran was directly assisting Houthi targeting of American military drones. Ships flagged in Greece, Norway, Malta, Portugal, Panama, and Liberia were struck, nations with no military role in the Middle East.

Container shipping through the Suez Canal dropped 90 percent. Freight rates between Shanghai and Rotterdam increased sevenfold. The Russell Group estimated that $1 trillion in goods were disrupted between October 2023 and May 2024 alone. Fifteen percent of global seaborne trade, including 12 percent of traded oil and 8 percent of liquefied natural gas, was effectively blocked by a militia armed, trained, and directed by Tehran.

In June 2019, CENTCOM video evidence showed IRGC naval personnel removing an unexploded limpet mine from a Japanese-owned tanker in the Gulf of Oman, one of two vessels struck in waters through which roughly 20 percent of globally traded oil passes. In December 2019, Kataib Hezbollah killed an American contractor at K1 base in Kirkuk. When the United States responded by killing IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, Iran retaliated with a direct ballistic missile strike on Ain al-Assad Airbase in Iraq, injuring more than 100 American troops.

In January 2024, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella coalition of IRGC-backed militias led by Kataib Hezbollah, killed three American service members at Tower 22 in Jordan, part of a campaign in which Iran-backed militias conducted more than 180 attacks on U.S. forces between October 2023 and November 2024.

In April 2024, Iran launched its first-ever direct strike on Israeli territory, firing more than 300 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, confirmed by both CENTCOM and IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. In October 2024, Iran launched a second direct strike of 180 ballistic missiles at Israel.

In October 2024, an IRGC-directed cell conducted an arson attack on a kosher restaurant in Sydney, Australia. In December 2024, a second cell firebombed the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, injuring a congregation member. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization assessed that Iran was responsible for both attacks and likely others. Australia has no military forces deployed against Iran. It is not a party to any conflict with Tehran.

On June 23, 2025, Iran fired ballistic missiles directly at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East, marking the first direct Iranian strike on a major U.S. Gulf base. Three weeks earlier, Iran-backed militias had struck five U.S. installations in Iraq and Syria.

When Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, 2026, Iran responded within hours with Operation True Promise IV, striking Israel, U.S. military bases, and civilian and energy infrastructure across the Gulf. A joint U.S.-Gulf statement condemned Iran’s strikes on Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as targeting “sovereign territory, endangered civilian populations, and damaged civilian infrastructure,” nations that had not participated in the strikes on Iran.

Qatar’s LNG facilities at Mesaieed and Ras Laffan were struck and halted production; Bahrain’s state energy company Bapco declared force majeure after attacks on its refinery complex; Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery sustained a fire from Iranian drones. According to the UAE Ministry of Defence, Iran fired a total of 438 ballistic missiles, 2,012 drones, and 19 cruise missiles at UAE territory through April 1, 2026, alone. None of the Gulf states targeted had participated in the strikes against Iran.

On March 2, 2026, a Shahed-type drone struck the runway at RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s main air base in Cyprus. The UK Ministry of Defence confirmed the strike caused minimal damage and no casualties. It was the first attack on the base since 1986. Iran’s cyber campaign ran in parallel.

On March 11, American medical technology company Stryker confirmed that an Iran-linked hacking group, Handala, had disrupted its global network, with the Wall Street Journal reporting employees found the group’s logo on login screens across the company’s offices worldwide. A subsequent joint advisory issued April 7, 2026, by the FBI, CISA, NSA, and U.S. Cyber Command documented Iranian-affiliated actors exploiting industrial control systems across U.S. water, energy, and government sectors since at least March 2026.

The IRGC’s campaign against international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz predates the 2026 conflict by years. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned multiple senior IRGC commanders in 2019, specifically for threatening to close the strait and engaging in destabilizing naval actions in and around it. In July 2019, Iranian forces boarded and seized the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero.

In January 2021, Iran seized the South Korean-flagged Hankuk Chemi. In April 2024, the IRGC seized the Portuguese-flagged container ship MSC Aries in the Gulf of Oman, with 25 crew aboard. When Operation Epic Fury began in February 2026, Iran escalated to a full closure of the strait, with the IRGC issuing orders forbidding passage, laying sea mines, and using fast-attack boats to board and seize commercial vessels.

In April 2026, Iranian gunboats fired on Indian-flagged vessels attempting transit, and the IRGC seized two container ships, the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, directing them to Iranian waters. The UN International Maritime Organization condemned the seizures as unacceptable. Roughly 25 percent of the world’s seaborne oil trade and 20 percent of global LNG passes through the strait annually.

President Trump was not wrong. Iran poses a clear and present threat to the United States and its allies, a claim supported by a quarter-century of documented evidence.

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