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Three Decades of Iranian terrorism in the Gulf | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Iranian officials of interior ministry sit next to a picture of late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (EPA)


Three Decades of Iranian terrorism in the Gulf

by | Jan 9, 2016 | Middle East |

Three Decades of Iranian terrorism in the Gulf
Iranian officials of interior ministry sit next to a picture of late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (EPA)

Iranian officials of the interior ministry sit next to a picture of late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (EPA)

Iran’s threats to Gulf countries are not new and nor did they suddenly appear. Since the rise of the mullahs’ rule, Iran has turned into a country ruled by a revolutionary leader and is stepping up its rhetoric that some describe as “uncontrolled and unbalanced”.

After a year of Khomeini’s reign in Iran, his country threatened Saudi Arabia that it will regret lowering oil prices, and Iranian officials claimed at the time that Riyadh and Washington were conspiring to harm Russia.

That threat was followed by several others; the most obvious was made in 1990 before the Second Gulf War known as “Operation Desert Storm”, when the Supreme Leader Khamenei threatened that his country will respond to Saudi Arabia, especially considering that Saudi Arabia was conspiring with the West against it. Khamenei then advised Saudi Arabia and Iraq to commit to OPEC as it “is we who rule the waters of the Gulf”.

Iran has lately increased its threats to Saudi Arabia, especially before the military operations carried out by the Arab Coalition which is led by Saudi Arabia to regain legitimacy in Yemen. Before “Operation Decisive Storm” was launched on the 26th of March 2015, and the Iranian website “Tasnim” confirmed in an article it published that Yemen was under its control.

The Washington Institute published an article by Matthew Levitt, Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, last May on Iran and its sabotage arm in the Arab region Hezbollah’s threats to Saudi Arabia. The article also included the history of Iranian threats and the terrorist and subversive acts it has carried out in Saudi Arabia according to several sources. Levitt says in his article: “Iran has a long history of plotting attacks against its Saudi rivals in response to real and perceived transgressions”. He added that these “plots, carried out by Iranian agents and Hezbollah proxies, have targeted Saudi interests in the Middle East and elsewhere”.