Iran Remains Top Terror Sponsor

The State Department has released its annual report on international terrorism, and once again Iran is designated "the most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world.

According to the report, Iran's financial, material, and logistical support for terrorist groups in the Middle East and Central Asia subverted international efforts to promote peace, threatened economic stability in the Gulf, and undermined the growth of democracy.

Iran’s Qods Force, the external operations branch of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is the regime's principal mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad. It has provided weapons, training, and funding to Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestine Islamic Jihad and other terrorist and extremist groups.

In addition, the Qods Force provided training to the Taliban in Afghanistan; and since 2006, Iran has arranged arms shipments to select Taliban members. Despite pledges to support the stabilization of Iraq, Iranian authorities continued to provide weapons, training, funding, and guidance to Iraqi militant groups that targeted U.S. and Iraqi forces as well as civilians. The regime also refused to bring to justice senior al-Qaida members who are living in Iran.

The report notes that Iranian government officials were indicted by the Government of Argentina for their alleged roles in the 1994 terrorist bombing of the Argentine-Jewish Mutual Association. INTERPOL issued a "red notice" for six men wanted in connection with the bombing. One of them, Ahmad Vahidi, has been Iran's Defense Minister since 2009.

Iran is not the only state sponsor of terrorism, according to the State Department: Cuba, Syria, and Sudan also remain designated.

The scourge of state-sponsored terrorism affects the lives, hopes, and happiness of thousands of people around the world. It is a travesty that great and storied nations, like Iran, have leaders that use their nation's resources to support the murder for political ends of innocent people abroad. The United States again calls on such governments to end their support for terrorism.