WHY IRAN - WHY NOW ? Iranian and Iranian-Backed Attacks Against Americans (1979-Present)

 Armed conflict between the United States and Iran did not begin in 2026, but instead has deep roots that extend back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. For nearly five decades, the clerical regime in Tehran and its proxies have committed a range of attacks against Americans, posing a longstanding and continuing threat to U.S. national security. This memorandum, first published in June 2025 during the 12-Day War, provides select documentation of these assaults. While the list is not comprehensive, it demonstrates that Tehran has long endangered U.S. forces in the Middle East, the American homeland, and Americans residing across the globe.

November 1979-January 1981: Iranian students — with the backing of Tehran — take dozens of Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

April 1983: A suicide car bombing kills 63 people, including 17 Americans, at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The Iran-backed terrorist group Islamic Jihad, a precursor and early branch of Hezbollah (not to be confused with Palestinian Islamic Jihad), claims responsibility.

October 1983: Operatives of the Iran-backed Hezbollah drive a truck bomb at a Marine compound in Beirut, killing 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel.

December 1983: Hezbollah operatives drive an explosives-filled dump truck through the gates of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City. No Americans are harmed.

March 1984: Terrorists kidnap CIA station chief William Buckley in Beirut, subsequently torturing and ultimately killing him in 1985. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.

December 1984: Hezbollah terrorists hijack Kuwait Airways Flight 221 on its way from Kuwait to Pakistan and divert it to Tehran, killing two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

June 1985: Hezbollah terrorists hijack TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome and kill a U.S. Navy diver.

July 1989: Hezbollah operatives kill U.S. Marine Corps Col. William Higgins after kidnapping him the previous year while on a UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon.

April 1995: An explosives-laden van crashes into a bus near Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip, killing one American and seven Israelis. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.

August 1995: A Hamas suicide bomber blows up a bus in the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood of Jerusalem, killing an American and three other passengers and wounding more than 100.

February 1996: A Hamas suicide bomber blows up a Jerusalem bus, killing three Americans and wounding three other Americans. A total of 26 people die in the attack.

March 1996: A suicide bomber blows up the Dizengoff shopping center in Tel Aviv, wounding two Americans. Twenty people die and 75 others are injured in the attack. Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claim responsibility.

May 1996: Gunmen kill an American-Israeli dual citizen in the community of Beit El in the West Bank. Another U.S. citizen and three Israelis are wounded. No group claims responsibility, but Israel suspects Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

June 1996: A truck carrying 5,000 pounds of explosives blows up the Khobar Towers, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in the Saudi Arabian town of Khobar. Nineteen Americans die and some 500 people are injured. The Iran-backed Hezbollah Al Hijaz, a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia, is deemed responsible.

September 1997: Three Hamas suicide bombers blow themselves up at the Ben Yehuda shopping mall in Jerusalem, killing a U.S.-Israeli dual citizen and wounding seven other American citizens. Four other people die and nearly 200 are wounded in the attack.

August 1998: With the assistance of Hezbollah, al-Qaeda suicide bombers almost simultaneously blow up the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounding thousands. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, al-Qaeda developed “the tactical expertise for such attacks months earlier, when some of its operatives — top military committee members and several operatives who were involved with the Kenya cell among them — were sent to Hezbollah training camps in Lebanon.”

August 2001: A Hamas suicide bomber blows up the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, killing a U.S.-Israeli dual citizen and two other Americans. A total of 15 people die in the attack.

September 11, 2001: While the 9/11 Commission Report concludes that Iran had no foreknowledge of al-Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center, the report indicates that Tehran facilitated the travel of some of the terrorists. “In sum,” the report notes, “there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.”

January 2002: Gunmen affiliated with the Iran-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade kill a U.S.-Israeli dual citizen and wound another individual in the West Bank community of Beit Sahur.

July 2002: A bomb planted by a Hamas terrorist kills five American students at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, including an American-Israeli dual citizen and an American-French dual citizen. A total of nine people die in the attack.

June 2003: An American citizen, along with 16 other people, die when a Hamas terrorist blows himself up on a bus in Jerusalem.

October 2003: Terrorists from the Iran-backed Popular Resistance Committees kill three U.S. diplomatic personnel in a bombing in Gaza.

2003-2011: Iranian-backed militias kill at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. Iranian training and material support for Iraqi militias during the surge greatly increased the difficulties U.S. forces faced while combating the insurgency and included some of the deadliest weapons used against American troops, such as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

August 2003: A Hamas suicide bomber blows up a bus in Jerusalem, killing five Americans and wounding one other American. A total of 24 people die in the attack.

August 2006: Hezbollah fighters kill American citizen Michael Levin, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), during the Second Lebanon War. He is the only American to die in the conflict.

January 2007: Twelve men affiliated with the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) disguise themselves as U.S. soldiers, enter the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in the Iraqi city of Karbala, kill five U.S. soldiers, and wound another three. In 2019, the U.S. State Department issues a $15 million bounty for information on an IRGC Quds Force commander who planned the attack and other “assassinations of coalition forces in Iraq.”

July 2014: Hamas terrorists kill two Americans serving in the IDF during fighting between the terrorist group and Israel in Gaza as part of Operation Protective Edge.

October 2015: Hamas terrorists kill an American citizen and his wife, residents of the West Bank community of Neria, in their car in a drive-by shooting.

December 2019: Rockets fired by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, kill an American security contractor and wound several U.S. service members and Iraqi personnel at the K1 military base in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

January 2020: A direct Iranian ballistic missile attack against the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq causes more than 100 U.S. troops to suffer traumatic brain injuries.

March 2020: The family of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007, announces that he likely died in an Iranian prison at an unknown date.

September 2020: U.S. intelligence reports indicate that Iran is weighing a plot to assassinate U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks.

February 2021: A rocket fired by an Iran-backed militia at coalition forces in the Iraqi city of Erbil wounds a U.S. service member and four U.S. civilian contractors.

July 2021: Iranian-backed militias conduct at least three rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces in 24 hours in Iraq and Syria, wounding two U.S. service members.

September 2022: An Iranian rocket attack kills an American citizen in Iraqi Kurdistan.

November 2022: A captain in Iran’s IRGC orchestrates the killing of an American citizen living in Baghdad who worked at an English language institute.

March 2023: An Iranian drone kills an American contractor and wounds five service members and another contractor when it strikes a coalition base near the Syrian city of Hasakah.

October 7, 2023: Hamas kills at least 48 Americans and kidnaps at least 12 Americans in a massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel.

December 2023: A drone attack conducted by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia against U.S. forces in Erbil wounds three American soldiers, including one critically injured with shrapnel to the head, which placed him in a coma.

January 2024: A drone launched by Kataib Hezbollah kills three U.S. soldiers at a U.S. military base in Jordan and wounds more than 40 other service members.

October 2024: Iran executes German-Iranian national and U.S. permanent resident Jamshid Sharmahd on fraudulent terrorism charges.

November 2024: A report released by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies indicates that Iran and its proxies have conducted more than 180 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East between October 17, 2023, and November 19, 2024, resulting in more than 180 wounded and three killed U.S. service members.

November 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces charges against an Iranian national and two American accomplices for plotting to assassinate President Trump.

March 2025: A U.S. jury convicts two agents of Iran for plotting to assassinate Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad in New York in 2022.

June 2025: At least three U.S. bases in Syria and two U.S. bases in Iraq are attacked with missiles or drones, likely by Iranian-backed militias.

March 2026: Six American soldiers are killed in action during U.S. operations against Iran.

March 6, 2026 | Insight   https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/03/06/iranian-and-iranian-backed-attacks-against-americans-1979-present/