While the U.S. weighs its future involvement in the conflict between Iran and Israel, many leaders are looking with fresh eyes at Iran’s activities targeting Americans worldwide over four decades.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., posted on Tuesday, ‘The forever war is the war that Iran has waged against the U.S., Israel, and the civilized world since 1979.’
The examples of Iran’s involvement in attacks on Americans include direct and proxy attacks on U.S. forces, support for terror groups, and assassination efforts.
1979 US Embassy hostage crisis
In the early days of the Islamic revolution in 1979, radical Islamic students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s first supreme religious leader, took hold of the situation, spurning international appeals to release the hostages. The last U.S. hostages were released 444 days later.
1983 Beirut bombings
In 2023, Sayyed Issa Tabatabai, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in Lebanon, admitted during an interview with the state-controlled Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that the Islamic Republic was involved in two 1983 bombings that killed Americans in Lebanon.
The bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut resulted in the deaths of 63 victims, including 17 Americans. When two suicide truck bombs exploded at the barracks of multinational forces in Lebanon, 220 Marines, 18 U.S. Navy sailors and three U.S. Army soldiers were killed, and 58 French troops were murdered.
In the IRNA interview, Tabatabai said ‘I quickly went to Lebanon and provided what was needed in order to [carry out] martyrdom operations in the place where the Americans and Israelis were.’ He also stated that he received a fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordering him to carry out the attacks, though the IRNA removed the assertion ‘shortly after publication,’ according to a report and translation of the interview from the Middle East Media Research Institute.
1996 Khobar Towers bombing
On June 25, 1996, 19 U.S. Air Force members were killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the Khobar Towers. Al Jazeera reported that in 2006, a U.S. court found the Iranian government responsible for the attack, committed by Saudi members of Hezbollah. The court ordered Iran to pay $254 million to victims of the attack.
Terrorism support in Iraq and Afghanistan
According to a 2019 Pentagon report cited by the Military Times, Iran bears responsibility for the deaths of 603 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. This figure accounted for 17% of U.S. deaths in the country during the period.
Some U.S. victims have been able to prove Iran’s connections to our enemies in court.
In 2022, surviving family members and victims won a case against the Islamic Republic of Iran, using the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to hold the regime accountable for its support of terror actors who killed or injured 30 U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.
Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal, testified in support of the victims. He told Fox News Digital that ‘Iran’s support for the Taliban and al Qaeda and the impact it had on the deaths and injuries to American soldiers and civilians is incalculable. Iran provided money, weapons, training, intelligence, and safe haven to Taliban subgroups across Afghanistan, including in the heart of the country in Kabul.’ In Roggio’s estimation, ‘Iran’s support for the Taliban was only rivaled by that of Pakistan. I would argue that Iran’s extensive support facilitated nearly every Taliban attack on U.S. personnel.’
In 2022, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., found that Iran likewise 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 in the country.
Proxy involvement, attempts at retribution
In attempted retribution for the murder of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran targeted two U.S. bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq with surface-to-surface missiles in 2020.
In January 2024, three Americans were killed, and 25 others were wounded in a drone attack on an outpost in Jordan near the border with Syria. Two Iranians, one of whom had dual U.S. citizenship, were charged in connection with the attack.
At the time of the attack, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex) said that Iranian proxies had ‘launched over 150 attacks on U.S. troops’ following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
Roggio reported that on June 14, Iranian-backed militias ‘launched three drones’ at Ain al Assad, a U.S. base in western Iraq. The drones were shot down before reaching their target.
Roggio said that the drone attack ‘appears to be an unsanctioned strike by an unnamed Iranian militia. Unlike past attacks, no group has claimed credit, and there have been no follow-on strikes.’ He believes Iran ‘wants to keep the U.S. out of the fight, as the U.S. military has the capability to hit 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. Throughout their ‘decades of experience,’ Roggio says Iraqi militias ‘are estimated to have killed more than 600 U.S. service members.’
Kidnappings
Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent and private investigator, disappeared from an Iranian island in 2007. Levinson was held hostage and was declared dead in 2020, when he was said to have died in Iranian custody. His family blamed the Iranian regime for his capture and imprisonment.
Just last year, Iran executed Jamshid Sharmahd. Sharmahd survived an assassination attempt in California in which an Iranian agent was convicted of the planned murder. He was then kidnapped by the Iranian regime in Dubai in 2020 as part of a business trip.
The history of prisoner exchanges between Iran and the U.S. dates back to 1979. The most recent prisoner exchange of five Americans imprisoned in Iran for five Iranians detained in the U.S. occurred in September 2023. As part of the deal, the U.S. released $6 billion in frozen assets in South Korea.
Assassinations
In November, the Department of Justice announced charges against an Iranian citizen and two New Yorkers for their role in a murder-for-hire plot targeting multiple American citizens, including President Donald Trump.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Monday that Trump remains an Islamic Republic target. ‘They want to kill him. He’s enemy number one.’
Fox News’ Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.