Nearly one year after the Obama administration sealed the Iranian nuclear deal, a new State Department report shows Iran is still the lead state-sponsor of terrorism.
"The United States continues to work to disrupt Iran’s support for terrorism. Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism globally. As explained in the report, Iran continues to provide support to Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various groups in Iraq and throughout the Middle East,"
State Department Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism Justin Siberell announced this week. "Confronting Iran’s destabilizing activities and its support for terrorism was a key element of our expanded dialogue with the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, following the leaders summit at Camp David in May of last year. We’ve also expanded our cooperation with partners in Europe, South America, and West Africa to develop and implement strategies to counter the activities of Iranian-allied and sponsored groups, such as Hizballah,"
Hezbollah (Hizballah) and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza strip are specifically focused on attacking Israel and the United States. In fact before 9/11, Hezbollah was responsible for more American terrorism deaths than any other terrorist organization in the world.
As part of the Iranian nuclear deal, the regime received billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which Secretary of State John Kerry admitted would likely be used to funded terrorism.
"I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) or of other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists. You know, to some degree, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented," Kerry said during an economic forum in Switzerland this year. "But I can tell you this, right now, we are not seeing the early delivery of funds going to that kind of endeavor at this point in time. I’m sure at some point some of it will."
