Before the U.S. and Israel opened a war on Iran, the Islamic republic had waged a nearly 50-year campaign of global terrorism that has killed thousands, including at least 995 U.S. servicemen, military personnel and other Americans.
Beginning with taking hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, Iran’s campaign of terror included as many as 360 targeted assassinations, dozens of terrorist plots and violent attacks in more than 40 countries.
Iran-backed militias are responsible for killing at least 603 U.S. troops during the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011. U.S. officials say those deaths accounted for roughly 1 in 6 U.S. combat fatalities in the country.
Iran funds and provides weapons such as attack drones and ballistic missiles to military groups in the region, known as the “Axis of Resistance.” Their purpose is to carry out Iran’s anti-American, anti-Israel terrorist agenda. The group includes Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis in Yemen and Shiite militia in Iraq.
According to the White House, Iran has killed more Americans than any other terrorist regime. Iran has twice attempted to assassinate President Trump.
After hundreds of attacks and nearly 1,000 American deaths, the United States is on the verge of ending the regime’s “blood-soaked war” on the United States, Mr. Trump said.
Matthew Levitt, senior fellow and director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute, said an intact Islamist regime is unlikely to pull back from its holy war.
“Iran sees terrorism as an extension of foreign policy — an asymmetric means of reaching its adversaries beyond its borders despite their military superiority.”
These incidents are just part of Iran’s terrorism around the world:
• November 1979: The U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized by regime-backed students who held 66 Americans hostage, 52 of whom were held for 444 days. A botched U.S. rescue mission killed eight U.S. troops.
• April 1983: Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad terrorists, associated with Hezbollah, drove a half-ton pickup truck carrying 2,000 pounds of explosives in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The blast killed 63 people, among them 17 Americans.
• October 1983: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists detonated a truck bomb carrying 12,000 pounds of TNT in front of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. The blast killed 241 U.S. military personnel, including 220 U.S. Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. An additional 13 people later died as a result of their injuries. Another 115 people were wounded.
• March 1984: Islamic Jihad kidnapped William F. Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut. Buckley was held hostage, tortured and executed by Hezbollah.
• April 1984: Hezbollah took credit for detonating a car bomb at a restaurant near the U.S. Air Force base in Torrejon, Spain, killing 18 U.S. servicemen.
• September 1984: Hezbollah terrorists detonated a car bomb at the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut, killing 23 people, including two U.S. military personnel.
• December 1984: Hezbollah terrorists hijacked a Kuwait Airways flight and tortured and killed two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
• June 1985: Hezbollah hijacked TWA Flight 847 en route to Athens and Rome and forced the plane to land in Beirut. Hijackers fatally shot U.S. Navy Diver Robert Stethem and dumped his body onto the airport tarmac.
• June 1996: Hezbollah terrorists bombed a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. airmen and wounding 500 people.
• August 1998: Al Qaeda suicide bombers backed by Hezbollah bombed embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The blasts killed 224 people, among them 12 Americans.
• August 2001: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber blew up a pizza restaurant in downtown Jerusalem. The blast killed 16 people, including seven children and a pregnant woman. More than 130 were wounded. Three Americans were killed in the explosion.
• July 2002: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists bombed Hebrew University in Jerusalem, killing nine people, including five Americans, and injuring nearly 100 others.
• June 2003: Hamas suicide bomber detonated explosives on a bus in Jerusalem, killing 17 people, including an American.
• March 2007: Former FBI Agent Robert Levinson was abducted by Iranian intelligence officials and is thought to have died in an Iranian prison.
• July 2014: Hamas terrorists killed two Americans serving in the Israel Defense Forces.
• January 2020: An Iranian ballistic missile attack on the Ain-al-Asad air base in Iraq caused traumatic brain injuries in 109 U.S. troops.
• September 2022: An Iranian rocket attack in Iraqi Kurdistan killed an American citizen.
• March 2023:An Iranian drone struck a military base in Syria, killing an American contractor and wounding five U.S. troops.
• Oct. 7, 2023: Hamas attacked Israel, killing nearly 2,000 civilians and Israeli security forces, wounding 3,400 people and kidnapping 251 soldiers and civilians. At least 48 Americans were killed and a dozen kidnapped.
• October 2023 to November 2024: Iran and its proxies waged more than 180 attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East, killing three American service members and injuring more than 180 others.
• July 2024: Pakistani nationals with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were arrested for trying to recruit people to assassinate Mr. Trump.
• November 2024: Farhad Shakeri, an Iranian national and IRGC asset, was charged with plotting to assassinate Mr. Trump. Shakari, who remained in Iran, was killed this month in a U.S. military strike.
• June 2025: Iran-backed militias attacked three U.S. bases in Syria and two U.S. bases in Iraq after U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.
