Iran and state-sponsored terrorism

Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been accused by several countries of training, financing, and providing weapons and safe havens for non-state militant actors, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other Palestinian groups such as the Islamic Jihad (IJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). These groups are designated terrorist groups by a number of countries and international bodies such as the EU, UN, and NATO, but Iran considers such groups to be "national liberation movements" with a right to self-defense against Israeli military occupation.^[1] These proxies are used by Iran across the Middle East and Europe to foment instability, expand the scope of the Islamic Revolution, and carry out terrorist attacks against Western targets in the regions. Its special operations unit, the Quds Force, is known to provide arms, training, and financial support to militias and political movements across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen.^[2]

A number of countries (Argentina, Thailand, Albania,^[3] Denmark,^[4] France,^[5] India,^[6] Kenya,^[7] United States)^[8][9][10] have also accused Iran's government itself, particularly its military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of plotting assassinations or bombings in their countries and others against perceived enemies of the Iranian government. In response, economic sanctions against the Iranian regime have been imposed by many countries and the United Nations. The first sanctions were imposed by the United States in November 1979, after a group of radical students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took hostages.^[11][12] The sanctions were expanded in 1995 to include business dealings with the Iranian government. However, these sanctions have not significantly impacted the country's relationships with its proxies. The United States Department of State estimated that Iran spent more than $16 billion in support of the Assad regime and its proxies between 2012 and 2020, a period in which Iran funneled more than $700 million to Hezbollah.

The Iranian government has been accused by the United States of harbouring several al-Qaeda leaders within their country despite mutual hostility between the two and their proxy groups and affiliates. In 2021, the U.S. claimed that al-Qaeda's new base of operations was in Iran.