The State Department’s annual report on global terrorist activity, which was released on Thursday, stated that Iran “remains the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2015.”
The report noted that Iran provides “a range of support, including financial, training, and equipment, to groups around the world.”
Iran continued to be deeply involved in the conflict in Syria, working closely with the Asad regime to counter the Syrian opposition, and also in Iraq where Iran continued to provide support to militia groups, including Foreign Terrorist Organization Kata’ib Hizballah. In addition, it was implicated for its support to violent Shia opposition group attacks in Bahrain. Iran was joined in these efforts by Hizballah, which continued to operate globally, as demonstrated by the disruption of Hizballah activities in Peru in 2014 and Cyprus in 2015.
Justin Siberell, the State Department’s acting counterterrorism coordinator, told reporters that the State Department was “concerned about a wide range of Iranian activities to destabilize the region.”
The report specifically identified Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) as the country’s “primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.” IRGC-QF commander Qassem Soleimani is under a United Nations travel ban, but has been reported to have violated the ban by traveling to Syria and Iraq to direct military operations there, as well as to Russia.
Secretary of State John Kerry admitted in an interview in January that some of the billions of dollars that are to be freed up after the lifting of nuclear sanctions on Iran “will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists.”
[Photo: Mehr News Agency ]