US: Iran’s sponsorship of global terror is ‘undiminished’
Annual report, released as nuclear deal deadline looms, highlights Revolutionary Guards as primary terror mechanism; hails Abbas for reducing incitement
WASHINGTON — Less than two weeks before the deadline for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran, the US State Department’s annual report on terror activity noted that Iran’s “state sponsorship of terrorism worldwide remained undiminished.”
The lengthy report, released Friday morning, also discussed Palestinian terrorism and attacks launched by Jewish Israelis against Palestinians and Christian and Muslim houses of worship.
The 388-page report, which warns that terror attacks worldwide rose 35% from 2013 to 2014, describes Iran’s attempts to spread its influence across the globe, using the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force as the “primary mechanism” for accessing terror groups throughout the Middle East, and with ties as far as South America.
“While its main effort focused on supporting goals in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Iran and its proxies also continued subtle efforts at growing influence elsewhere including in Africa, Asia, and, to a lesser extent, Latin America,” the report warned.
The report detailed Iranian support for Hezbollah and its role in propping up the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as its restated willingness to re-arm Hamas following last summer’s Operation Protective Edge.
A comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran would necessarily entail offering significant sanctions relief to Tehran – and opponents of a deal, notably including Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warn that the additional funds returning to the Iranian economy will likely enable increasing state sponsorship of terror.
US administration officials have, in recent months, noted Iran’s continued state sponsorship of terror groups as justification for retaining some sanctions against Iran. However last last week, the Associated Press reported that “the Obama administration may have to backtrack on its promise that it will suspend only nuclear-related economic sanctions.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry (left) and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif (right). (photo credit: AFP/Brian Snyder, Pool)
That article noted that 23 out of 24 currently sanctioned Iranian banks will be de-listed, including the government-owned Central Bank of Iran which was designated as a primary money laundering concern because the Iranians use it for financing terrorism, ballistic missile research and campaigns aimed at bolstering the Assad regime in Syria.
The Associated Press article warned that this additional relief would make it “easier for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and its police, intelligence services and paramilitary groups to do business.”
The annual report, compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, counted some 13,500 terror attacks that killed almost 33,000 people in 2014 – a stark rise from the 18,000 deaths from some 10,000 attacks in 2013.
The rise of Boko Haram and the Islamic State and the continuing carnage of the Syrian civil war were among the leading factors in 2014’s grim statistics. According to the data compiled, 78 percent of all terror fatalities occurred in five countries — Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria.
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