Syria, Yemen, and the Expansion of the Proxy Network: Beginning in 2012, Iran deployed Hezbollah, Afghan and Pakistani Shia militias, and IRGC regular forces into Syria to preserve the Assad regime, spending an estimated $16 billion through 2020. The IRGC had been supporting Yemen’s Houthi movement since at least 2011.
After the Houthis seized Sanaa in September 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government from power in 2015, Iran escalated arms deliveries, providing ballistic missiles, drones, and anti-ship weapons. In September 2019, Houthi forces struck the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, cutting the kingdom’s oil output by 50 percent, the largest disruption to global energy markets since Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Beginning in November 2023, the Houthis launched the most sustained attack on international commercial shipping since World War II. By March 2025, they had struck more than 130 vessels, sinking four, seizing one, and killing at least eight seafarers. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency recovered Iran’s Tolu-4 missile engine from a struck Norwegian vessel, and U.S. officials confirmed Iran was directly assisting Houthi targeting of American military drones. Ships flagged in Greece, Norway, Malta, Portugal, Panama, and Liberia were struck, nations with no military role in the Middle East.
Container shipping through the Suez Canal dropped 90 percent. Freight rates between Shanghai and Rotterdam increased sevenfold. The Russell Group estimated that $1 trillion in goods were disrupted between October 2023 and May 2024 alone. Fifteen percent of global seaborne trade, including 12 percent of traded oil and 8 percent of liquefied natural gas, was effectively blocked by a militia armed, trained, and directed by Tehran.
In June 2019, CENTCOM video evidence showed IRGC naval personnel removing an unexploded limpet mine from a Japanese-owned tanker in the Gulf of Oman, one of two vessels struck in waters through which roughly 20 percent of globally traded oil passes. In December 2019, Kataib Hezbollah killed an American contractor at K1 base in Kirkuk. When the United States responded by killing IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, Iran retaliated with a direct ballistic missile strike on Ain al-Assad Airbase in Iraq, injuring more than 100 American troops.
In January 2024, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella coalition of IRGC-backed militias led by Kataib Hezbollah, killed three American service members at Tower 22 in Jordan, part of a campaign in which Iran-backed militias conducted more than 180 attacks on U.S. forces between October 2023 and November 2024.
In April 2024, Iran launched its first-ever direct strike on Israeli territory, firing more than 300 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, confirmed by both CENTCOM and IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. In October 2024, Iran launched a second direct strike of 180 ballistic missiles at Israel.
In October 2024, an IRGC-directed cell conducted an arson attack on a kosher restaurant in Sydney, Australia. In December 2024, a second cell firebombed the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, injuring a congregation member. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization assessed that Iran was responsible for both attacks and likely others. Australia has no military forces deployed against Iran. It is not a party to any conflict with Tehran.
On June 23, 2025, Iran fired ballistic missiles directly at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East, marking the first direct Iranian strike on a major U.S. Gulf base. Three weeks earlier, Iran-backed militias had struck five U.S. installations in Iraq and Syria.
When Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, 2026, Iran responded within hours with Operation True Promise IV, striking Israel, U.S. military bases, and civilian and energy infrastructure across the Gulf. A joint U.S.-Gulf statement condemned Iran’s strikes on Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as targeting “sovereign territory, endangered civilian populations, and damaged civilian infrastructure,” nations that had not participated in the strikes on Iran.
Qatar’s LNG facilities at Mesaieed and Ras Laffan were struck and halted production; Bahrain’s state energy company Bapco declared force majeure after attacks on its refinery complex; Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery sustained a fire from Iranian drones. According to the UAE Ministry of Defence, Iran fired a total of 438 ballistic missiles, 2,012 drones, and 19 cruise missiles at UAE territory through April 1, 2026, alone. None of the Gulf states targeted had participated in the strikes against Iran.
On March 2, 2026, a Shahed-type drone struck the runway at RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s main air base in Cyprus. The UK Ministry of Defence confirmed the strike caused minimal damage and no casualties. It was the first attack on the base since 1986. Iran’s cyber campaign ran in parallel.
On March 11, American medical technology company Stryker confirmed that an Iran-linked hacking group, Handala, had disrupted its global network, with the Wall Street Journal reporting employees found the group’s logo on login screens across the company’s offices worldwide. A subsequent joint advisory issued April 7, 2026, by the FBI, CISA, NSA, and U.S. Cyber Command documented Iranian-affiliated actors exploiting industrial control systems across U.S. water, energy, and government sectors since at least March 2026.
The IRGC’s campaign against international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz predates the 2026 conflict by years. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned multiple senior IRGC commanders in 2019, specifically for threatening to close the strait and engaging in destabilizing naval actions in and around it. In July 2019, Iranian forces boarded and seized the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero.
In January 2021, Iran seized the South Korean-flagged Hankuk Chemi. In April 2024, the IRGC seized the Portuguese-flagged container ship MSC Aries in the Gulf of Oman, with 25 crew aboard. When Operation Epic Fury began in February 2026, Iran escalated to a full closure of the strait, with the IRGC issuing orders forbidding passage, laying sea mines, and using fast-attack boats to board and seize commercial vessels.
In April 2026, Iranian gunboats fired on Indian-flagged vessels attempting transit, and the IRGC seized two container ships, the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, directing them to Iranian waters. The UN International Maritime Organization condemned the seizures as unacceptable. Roughly 25 percent of the world’s seaborne oil trade and 20 percent of global LNG passes through the strait annually.
President Trump was not wrong. Iran poses a clear and present threat to the United States and its allies, a claim supported by a quarter-century of documented evidence.
