State Sponsored Acts of Terrorism

Iran-Sponsored Assassinations of Iranian Dissidents and Opposition leaders

• “Iran's primary targets are members of the regime's main opposition groups, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), as well as former officials of the late Shah's government who speak out against the clerical regime.”³⁸
• Dr. Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou, then Secretary-General of Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), killed with two associates in Vienna, where secretly meeting with envoys sent by then Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
• Dispatched diplomat-terrorists of the Iranian Islamic regime were suspected of direct involvement at the time. Austrian sources have since connected current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the assassination through weapons sales.³⁹
• Former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar 1991
• Former Iranian Prime Minister and opposition leader Shapour Bakhtiar assassinated in Paris.⁴¹
• Iranian Kurdish Leaders at Mykonos Restaurant in Berlin September 17, 1992 ⁴²
• 4 Iranian Kurds killed at Mykonos Café, including the leader of the KDPI, Dr. Mohammad Sadegh (Saeid) Sharafkandi.⁴³
• German courts link Iranian government and Minister of Intelligence Ali Fallahian to assassination.

Bodies of Ghassemlou and follower in the apartment following the attack

³⁸“1996 Global Terrorism: Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism.” Federation of American Scientists. http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/terror_96/overview.html

³⁹“Dr Ghassemlou: Twenty years of silence is enough” November 7, 2009. http://ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2009/7/irankurdistan487.htm

⁴⁰“Irankurdistan487a.” http://ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2009/7/irankurdistan487a.jpg Above dates from Sick, Op.Cit.

⁴¹Gunaratna, Rohan, Inside Al Qaeda, Berkley Books, New York: 2003. pp. 194-195.

⁴²http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/bu/iran/img/image016.jpg

⁴³Sancton, Thomas. “Iran’s State of Terror.” Time Europe. November 11, 1996. http://www.iricrimes.org/lr_int.asp?pgn=timemisc

1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Argentina

• Suicide truck bombing targeting the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.
• 29 people killed, 242 injured, including 4 Israelis, Argentine citizens and children.
• In 2008, an American judged ruled that Iran was responsible for the bombing, saying that Hezbollah committed the attack and could not have done so without Iranian assistance.⁴⁴

Bodies of Ghassemlou and follower in the apartment following the attack

⁴⁴Gertstein, Josh, “Iran Ruled Responsible for '92 Israeli Embassy Bombing,” The New York Sun, 2/27/08. http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iran-ruled-responsible-for-92-israeli-embassy/71936/

1993 World Trade Center bombing

• Truck bomb detonated in the garage below the World Trade Center.
• 6 people killed, more than 1,000 injured.⁴⁶
• The New York Times reported that at least $100,000, primarily coming from Iran, had been deposited in the account of the prime suspects of the February bombing.⁴⁷

⁴⁶“FBI – 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.” Federal Bureau of Investigation. February 26, 2008. http://www.fbi.gov/page2/feb08/tradebom_022608.html

⁴⁷“Iran Terror.” Iran: Terror Database. 19 July 2005. http://www.iranterror.com/content/view/38/56/

1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina

• AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires targeted in bombing.
• 85 people killed, including the embassy’s No. 2 diplomat; 230 injured.⁴⁸
• Deadliest bombing and terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.⁴⁹
• Iran was directly responsible for the attack. Argentine intelligence implicated former Qods Force commander Ahmad Vahidi as mastermind of the bombing.⁵⁰

AMIA Center Wreckage

⁴⁸“Argentines March Against Terror Bombing: The death toll from the Israeli Embassy attack is now 25, including the No. 2 envoy,” Los Angeles Times, March 20 1992, http://articles.latimes.com/1992-03-20/news/mn-4242_1_israeli-embassy

⁴⁹“The AMIA/DAIA Bombing: Terror in Argentina.” Anti-Defamation League. December 4, 2008. http://www.adl.org/terrorism/amia.asp

⁵⁰“The Qods Force” Iran Terror Database. 2005. http://www.iranterror.com/content/view/28/42/

1996 Khobar Towers bombing

• Truck bomb exploded at U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia.
• 19 American servicemen and one Saudi killed, 372 people wounded.
• 13 members of pro-Iran Saudi Hezbollah and one member of Lebanese Hezbollah were charged by a U.S. Federal Grand Jury in the attack.⁵²

Khobar Towers Attack Aftermath

⁵²“Federal Bureau of Investigation – Press Release.” Federal Bureau of Investigation. June 21, 2001. http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/khobar.htm

2003-Present

• U.S. authorities link Iran to al-Qaeda and Iraqi militants via monetary and weapons support.⁵⁴
• Iranian involvement in Iraq :
• Iran has played a significant role in aiding extremist insurgents in Iraq, directly contributing to American and allied deaths in Iraq - ⁵⁵
• 2004 - Defense Minister Hazem Sha'alan accused Iran of backing terrorism in Iraq and said that there was “clear interference in Iraqi issues by Iran.”
• 2005 - Muayed al-Nasseri, former commander of Saddam's "Army of Muhhammad," said in a television interview that Iran and Syria supplied his group with funds and arms ⁵⁶, and that Iran was the dominant financer of the insurgency in Iraq: “We got aid primarily from Iran. The truth is that Iran has played a significant role in supporting the Army of Muhammad and many factions of the resistance. I have some units, especially in southern Iraq, which receive Iranian aid in the form of arms and equipment."
• Senior Iranian Quds member arrested in Iraq with $150,000 in cash and plans to attack U.S. forces.⁵⁷
• Iranian Supplying of Weapons :
• 2004 - Present - July 19, 2005 - The U.S. sent a diplomatic protest to Iran accusing Tehran of providing Iraqi Shiite militants with advanced armor-piercing roadside bombs known as “explosively formed penetrators," or E.F.P.’s.
• In the report, the U.S. identified long-term connections between the Shi’ite insurgents and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• The U.S. also asserted that the Revolutionary Guards and Iran-supported Hezbollah were training Iraqi Shiite extremists in Iran and equiping them with bomb-making materials.⁵⁸
• U.S. authorities link Iran to al-Qaeda and Iraqi militants via monetary and weapons support.⁵⁴
• 2006 - 18% of combat deaths of American and allied forces fighting in Iraq in last quarter of year due to E.F.P. attacks, according to classified data compiled by the U.S. military.⁵⁹
• Increases in allied casualties from E.F.P. attacks attributed to Iran’s role supplying weapons.
• “According to U.S. intelligence, the explosive are going to Shiite militias that include rogue elements of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi army militia and a breakaway faction of the Badr Corps, the armed wing of a powerful Shiite party.”⁶⁰
• Support of Taliban :
• The Iranian Qods Force supplies the Taliban with weapons and funds to assist anti-U.S. and anti-coalition activity in Afghanistan.⁶¹
• "Since at least 2006, Iran has arranged frequent shipments of small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107 mm rockets, plastic explosives, and probably man-portable defense systems to the Taliban," according to the statement made by the Treasury Department in 2007 regarding economic sanctions against Iran.⁶²
• Army General McChrystal, then commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, stated in May 2010 that despite Iranian general support for the Afghan government against insurgents, “there is ‘clear evidence’ that some Taliban fighters have trained in Iran” and received weapons from Iran.⁶³

⁵⁴“Iran's Link to Al-Qaeda: The 9-11 Commission's Evidence,” Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2004, pp. 71-74. http://www.meforum.org/670/irans-link-to-al-qaeda-the-9-11-commissions#_ftn7

⁵⁵“U.S. Long Worried That Iran Supplied Arms in Iraq” The New York Times. 3/27/2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/world/middleeast/27weapons.html

⁵⁶“Iraqi Insurgency Groups,” http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_insurgency.htm

⁵⁷Ibid

⁵⁸ “U.S. Long Worried That Iran Supplied Arms in Iraq” The New York Times. 3/27/2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/world/middleeast/27weapons.html

⁵⁹Ibid

⁶⁰“U.S. Sees New Weapon In Iraq: Iranian EFPs,” CBS News, 2/11/07. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/11/iraq/main2458318.shtml

Iranian Support of Terrorism against Israel, 1980 – Present

• The U.S. government asserts, “Iran has supplied funding, haven, training and weapons for the Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”⁶⁴ In addition to demanding that Israel be “wiped off the map” and developing nuclear weapons programs, Iran has been working to undermine Israel from within via terrorism, and increasing its power in the Palestinian territories. Beginning with support of groups like Hezbollah in the 1980s, Iran’s efforts have increased since the early 2000s, as Iran has increasingly backed Palestinian groups directly involved in the conflict: “Since 2000, Iran has invested increasing amounts of funds, training, and logistical support that is dispensed via Hezbollah to Fatah affiliates in the West Bank and Gaza, effectively opening a new front for Iran and Hezbollah's war against Israel.”⁶⁵ More recently, Iran has provided greater financial and material backing to Hamas, particularly since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.⁶⁶ In Iran’s 2008 country report, the U.S. State Department noted, “Iran’s provision of training, weapons, and money to HAMAS since the 2006 Palestinian elections has bolstered the group’s ability to strike Israel.”⁶⁷

⁶⁴“Country Profile: Iran,” Library of Congress – Federal Research Division, May 2008, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Iran.pdf

⁶⁵“Iran’s Gaza Front,” The New York Sun, January 27, 2006. http://www.nysun.com/opinion/irans-gaza-front/26632/

⁶⁶Ibid

⁶⁷“Country Reports on Terrorism 2008 Chapter 3: State Sponsors of Terrorism,” United States Department of State, April 30, 2009, http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2008/122436.htm