White House shows Iran’s 'Decades of Terrorism' aimed at U.S, but omits IEDs and arms for Taliban

The Trump Administration has listed dozens of examples of Iranian terrorism aimed at American citizens and soldiers over the past nearly five decades, but a significant omission was the Iranian regime's years of collusion with the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The White House on Monday released a lengthy fact sheet titled “The Iranian Regime’s Decades of Terrorism Against American Citizens.” The Trump administration document laid out Iran’s lengthy history of targeting and attacking U.S. troops, diplomats, and citizens — including Iran’s role in the deaths of more than 600 U.S. service members during the war in Iraq — but it made no mention of the Iranian regime’s similar documented history of helping the Taliban kill U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan for nearly two decades.

The U.S. and the Israelis launched a joint attack early Saturday morning against Tehran, killing Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and degrading the Iranian military. The White House pointed to the Iranian regime’s long history of terrorism on Monday as part of the justification for U.S. strikes on Iran.

Iran collaborated with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda 

“For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic of Iran — the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — has killed and maimed American citizens and service members through its own forces and proxy militias. More Americans have been killed by Iran than any other terrorist regime on Earth,” the White House fact sheet said.

There is significant evidence that Iran collaborated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda to carry out attacks against U.S. troops, international coalition forces, and the Afghan republic’s military in an effort to eject the West from Afghanistan. This was not mentioned in the White House fact sheet.

The White House document released Monday said that what it was releasing was “only a partial record of the Iranian regime’s blood-soaked war on Americans” but it was notable that the Iranian regime’s targeting of American soldiers in Afghanistan was not among the nearly four dozen examples of Iranian terrorism aimed at the United States.

Examples from the White House include Iran taking U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days starting in 1979, its involvement in the suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983, the deadly bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, the bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in September 1984, the hijacking of TWA 847 in 1985, the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia in 1996, roadside bombs aimed at U.S. forces in Iraq, and much more.

More than 2,400 U.S. service members were killed during the twenty-year war in Afghanistan, with substantial evidence that the Iranian regime played a role in at least some of those deaths through the provision of weapons, training, rockets, IEDs, bounties, and more to the Taliban. Much of this was led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force (IRGC-QF) — which was led by Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani until he was killed in a U.S. drone strike during the first Trump administration in January 2020.

“There are obviously a million reasons to stop the evil Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon, increasing their ballistic missile capabilities, or using terrorist proxies,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Just the News on Tuesday. “The President is taking decisive action to eliminate all of these threats to the American people, which his predecessors talked about for 47 years, but only this President had the courage to accomplish.”

This White House statement also did not specifically mention the IRGC’s support for Taliban attacks on U.S. troops.

U.S. military knew Iran was helping Taliban by early years of Afghan invasion

It was known fairly early on in the war in Afghanistan that Iran was helping the Taliban insurgency in killing Americans.

A report from the U.S. military’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization assessed in 2006 that “the smuggling of Iranian weapons to Afghan insurgent groups is simply another tool to leverage against foreign threats while maintaining overall cooperation in the stabilization of Afghanistan.” The report said at the time that Iran’s goal was to “actively extend Iranian influence and maintain strategic awareness of important actors at the state, substate, and non-state levels.”

Then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair assessed in 2009 that “Iran has both long-term strategic and short-term tactical interests in Afghanistan and is not content with merely maintaining the status quo.”

“Iran is covertly supplying arms to Afghan insurgents while publicly posing as supportive of the Afghan government,” the Obama intelligence leader said. “Shipments typically include small arms, mines, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), rockets, mortars, and plastic explosives. Taliban commanders have publicly credited Iranian support for their successful operations against Coalition forces.”

General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, issued an “initial assessment” in 2009.

The Army Times later said a 2010 military intelligence assessment “also highlighted that Iran was funneling small arms and SA-7 shoulder fired air-defense systems to the Taliban through a former Afghan security official” and that “in some instances, IRGC officials helped transport groups of 10 to 20 Taliban fighters to various locations in Iran for training on MANPADS” — Man-Portable Air Defense Systems, which are shoulder-fired surface-to-air guided missiles which allow small groups to fire upon and take down low-flying aircraft or helicopters.

It was also reported by the outlet that the 2010 assessment said the Quds Force “usually asks the Taliban commanders to send their best fighters for the training, likely due to the more advanced training involved in learning MANPADS systems or possibly to allow these fighters to become future trainers of other Taliban fighters inside Afghanistan.”

The outlet also cited “an intelligence briefing on Iranian facilitation in Afghanistan” which “noted that between April 2007 and November 2009, four shipments of weapons and explosives of Iranian origin were interdicted that included” Explosively Formed Penetrators — or EFPs — and MANPADs.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a “Statement on Iran’s Military Power” in 2010 which pointed to Iranian military assistance to the Taliban in its fight with U.S. and NATO forces.

“Iran is attempting to secure influence in Iraq and Afghanistan while undermining U.S. efforts by furnishing lethal aid to Iraqi Shia militants and Afghan insurgents,” the DIA said. “Iran continues to influence events in Afghanistan through a multi-faceted approach involving support for the Karzai government while covertly supporting various insurgent and political opposition groups.”

The DIA said that “arms caches uncovered in Afghanistan over the last three years contained large amounts of Iranian manufactured weapons, including 107mm rockets” and that it had been the IRGC which had delivered the weapons to the Taliban.

“Iranian material assistance and training increased the lethality of roadside Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) and improvised rockets, enhancing the capabilities of the supported groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Levant,” the DIA also said.

The IRGC’s Quds Force “has provided limited and measured lethal support to select Afghan insurgent and terrorist groups since at least 2006,” the DIA said. “Iranian supplied 107mm rockets, plastic explosives, and mortar rounds have been recovered in Taliban-affiliated cache locations.”

Iran offered bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers

The evidence is substantial that the Iranian regime offered and paid bounties to the Taliban to encourage them to kill U.S. troops and their allied forces in Afghanistan.

The “Iranian government has offered each member of the group 100,000 Rupees (1,740 USD) for any [Afghan] soldier killed and 200,000 Rupees (3,481 USD) for any [Government of Afghanistan] official,” according to the 2005 report. Thomas Joscelyn, then a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in 2010 that it had been reported that “based on Taliban sources, that the Iranians are paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers” and that “we learn that the going rate is $1,000 per dead American and $6,000 for each American vehicle that is destroyed.”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Iran paying out rewards for dead Americans,” the FDD terrorism analyst added. “When WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of U.S. military documents earlier this year, a number of intelligence reports pointing to collusion between Iran and the Taliban (as well as al Qaeda) came to light.”

The Army Times later reported that a 2010 assessment from the Theater Intelligence Group based out of Bagram “said that Iran’s Quds Force was paying $1,000 for every U.S. soldier killed and $6,000 for American vehicles destroyed.”

It was reported by CNN in 2020 that U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that the Iranian regime had offered bounties to Taliban fighters to encourage them to target U.S. and coalition troops, with Iran making the bounty payments to the Haqqani Network after successful Taliban attacks on troops in Afghanistan.

The outlet said that “U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran offered bounties to Taliban fighters for targeting American and coalition troops in Afghanistan, identifying payments linked to at least six attacks carried out by the militant group just last year alone, including a suicide bombing at a U.S. air base in December [2019].”

The State Department’s report on 2019 said that, that December, “the Taliban conducted an attack on a hospital adjoining Bagram Airfield killing two and wounding 80 others, mostly civilians.”

CNN reported that Iran made the bounty payments to the Taliban’s Haqqani Network “for their attack on Bagram Air Base on December 11, 2019, which killed two civilians and injured more than 70 others, including four U.S. personnel, according to a Pentagon briefing document.”

“The Pentagon briefing document noted that a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (SVBIED) was used in the attack,” the outlet said. “Roughly 10 Taliban fighters engaged in a firefight with local security forces after the explosion and were ultimately killed by US airstrikes.”

The outlet said that the Pentagon document noted that the funding linked to the Taliban’s December 2019 attack on Bagram “probably incentivizes future high-profile attacks on US and Coalition forces.” The outlet added that the Pentagon assessment “notes that Iran reimbursed the Haqqani Network after it conducted at least six attacks against US and Coalition interests in 2019.”

A Trump administration official and former senior official reportedly told the outlet in 2020 “that Iran’s link to the Taliban was cited by U.S. officials as part of the argument for conducting the strike that killed top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in January.”

“The administration has repeatedly demanded, both publicly and privately, that Iran cease its scourge of malign and destabilizing behavior throughout the Middle East and the world,” a Defense Department spokesperson told Task and Purpose in 2020. “While the United States, its NATO allies and coalition partners are working to facilitate an end to 19 years of bloodshed, Iran’s inimical influence seeks to undermine the Afghan peace process and foster a continuation of violence and instability.”

U.S. warned about Iranian regime helping the Taliban kill American soldiers for years

The warnings about Iranian malfeasance in Afghanistan were present for many years ahead of the Taliban takeover in 2021.

General John Nicholson, then the Commander of U.S. Forces—Afghanistan, testified in 2017 that “we remain concerned about multiple critical factors, specifically the stability of the Afghan government, ANDSF [Afghan military] casualties, the influence of external actors on Afghanistan, including Pakistan, Russia, and Iran, and the convergence of the 20 terrorist groups and three VEOs [violent extremist organizations] operating in the region.”

The general assessed that “Iran is providing support to the Taliban.”

“Iran’s provision of military training, financing, and weapons to the Taliban is yet another example of Tehran’s blatant regional meddling and support for terrorism,” then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at the time. “The United States and our partners will not tolerate the Iranian regime exploiting Afghanistan to further their destabilizing behavior.”

The department said that IRGC officer Mohammad Ebrahim Owhadi was “designated for acting for or on behalf of IRGC-QF and for assisting in, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of, the Taliban.”

The department detailed an agreement between Owhadi and Abdullah Samad Faroqui — the “Taliban Deputy Shadow Governor for Herat Province” — which “included the IRGC-QF providing training” to Taliban militants at IRGC-QF training facilities, and that the IRGC-QF was indeed “providing a basic military training program” for the Taliban forces. The department added that IRGC officer Esma’il Razavi “was in charge of the training center at the IRGC-QF base” in Iran which “provided training, intelligence, and weapons to Taliban forces” in a number of Afghan provinces.

“Samad received thousands of kilograms of explosives from the IRGC that he planned to distribute to Taliban commanders throughout Herat Province, Afghanistan,” the department said.  “Samad visited a training camp in Birjand, Iran, where the IRGC was training Taliban fighters to attack a proposed pipeline that would run through Afghanistan. Samad promised to distribute Iranian provided funds to the fighters’ families.”

A number of other Taliban and IRGC officials were sanctioned at the time over this partnership.

The Defense Intelligence Agency assessed in 2019 that “since at least 2007, Iran has provided calibrated support — including weapons, training, and funding — to the Taliban” in an effort to “counter U.S. and Western influence in Afghanistan … and increase Tehran’s influence in any post-reconciliation government.” 

The DIA said it was the IRGC that was the main conduit for support to the Taliban.

“Iran also provides advanced weapons support to the Houthis in Yemen and calibrated support to Shia militants in Bahrain and the Taliban in Afghanistan,” the DIA said. “The IRGC-QF, the IRGC’s external operations element, is Iran’s primary conduit of support and guidance to these nonstate partners and proxies.”

The DIA said it was Soleimani who was the “key architect and chief executor of Iran’s foreign policy in regional conflict zones, including Afghanistan.”

The U.S. defense agency assessed that the Afghan Taliban “are less receptive to Iranian guidance but still help further Iran’s regional objectives because they combat common enemies.”

Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2019 laid out “a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests.” Pompeo pointed to a May 2019 “car bomb in Afghanistan” which “wounded four U.S. service members, killed four Afghan civilians, and wounded bystanders.”

“We have confidence that Iran instigated this attack,” Pompeo told CBS News soon after. “I can't share any more of the intelligence. But I wouldn't have said it if the intelligence community hadn't become convinced that this was the case.”

The Defense Department assessed in 2020 that “Iran pursues its goals in Afghanistan by providing calibrated support to the Taliban and engaging with and trying to strengthen ties with the Afghan government. Iran’s interests include removing the U.S./NATO presence.”

The Taliban would take over Afghanistan the next year.

Judge ruled Iran helped Taliban Syndicate kill U.S. troops with IEDs, rockets, and more

Long War Journal senior editor Bill Roggio tweeted in 2022 that “we found evidence that Iran’s IRGC was providing funds to Taliban and Al-Qaeda-led terror cells operating in and around Kabul.”

“These IRGC-supported cells were known as the Kabul Attack Network,” Roggio said. “The IRGC was financing some of the most spectacular attacks in the heart of Afghanistan, against U.S., NATO and Afghan security forces, as well as civilians.”

The Long War Journal analyst said that “Iran found common ground with the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, & other groups as they all wanted to kill & wound U.S. servicemen, & drive up the cost for the U.S. to remain in Afghanistan. Iran feared the U.S. on its eastern & western borders (Afghanistan & Iraq), & wanted the U.S. out.”

“Iran (along with Pakistan) succeeded in helping the Taliban/Syndicate wear down the U.S. and force it to abandon Afghanistan,” Roggio concluded. “Iran achieved its primary goal – force the U.S. to leave.”

Judge John Bates concluded in a 2022 opinion that “between 2006 and 2019, a terrorist syndicate comprising, among other groups, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Haqqani Network perpetrated numerous terrorist attacks against American servicemembers and civilians in Afghanistan.”

The judge added that “Iran provided four main types of material support to the Syndicate: weapons, training, financial support, and safe haven. Iran also assisted in the Taliban’s drug-trafficking operations, which helped to finance the Syndicate’s efforts to expel U.S. troops and restore the Islamic Emirate.” Bates pointed to eleven “bellwether attacks” from 2008 to 2017, including complex attacks, IED attacks, roadside bombs, vehicle-borne suicide attacks, helicopter attacks, suicide vest bombings, a rocket attack on Bagram, a rifle attack, a kidnapping, and an insider shooting.

“Declassified intelligence reporting shows that the IRGC provided weapons, including IEDs, to the Taliban’s shadow governors of various provinces,” Bates found. “The shadow governor of Farah Province, Haji Yusouf, received 180 machine guns, which he disseminated to subordinate commanders throughout the province to attack Afghan and Coalition forces, amplifying the impact of the Taliban and Iran across Farah Province.”

Bates also said Iran “provided the Syndicate with ‘training [and] expert advice or assistance’ both by bringing Taliban fighters into Iran for training and by sending Iranian trainers into Afghanistan; indeed, Iran’s trainers sometimes even assisted directly with attacks.”

The Iranian regime “also supported the Syndicate’s attacks financially by providing the Taliban with ‘currency,’ both with the direct provision of cash to Taliban leaders and by paying bounties to terrorists who killed or wounded troops or damaged equipment,” the judge found.

The judge said that “Iran also provided the Syndicate with material support through the IRGC and Quds Force.” Bates assessed that “the Supreme Leader intentionally directed the Quds Force’s provision of material support to the Syndicate, and the Quds Force did not act without his approval.”

The Taliban — which protected al-Qaeda before and after 9/11 — rapidly took over Afghanistan in August 2021 amid a chaotic U.S. withdrawal and evacuation, following years of covert support from the Iranian regime.