Americans Sue Iran and North Korea for Supporting Terrorist Attacks

WASHINGTON — American victims of Middle East terrorist attacks and their families are suing Iran and North Korea in a new lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, says Iran and North Korea should be liable after they funded, trained and provided weapons to terrorists who attacked Americans.

Normally, foreign nations are immune from lawsuits in American courts. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act creates an exception for terrorism.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia mentions 48 victims. They were killed or injured in seven incidents, such as the December 2019 rocket attack that killed an American contractor in Iraq; the Oct. 7, 2023 hostage-taking attack in Israel that resulted in several American deaths and injuries; and other terrorist assaults in Syria and Kenya.

It names groups such as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah as being the terrorists who carried out the attacks with Iranian and North Korean support.

“Together, these Iranian terrorist sponsors and their North Korean allies participated in a global terrorist alliance led by Iran — the ‘Axis of Resistance’ — that sought to use terrorism to undermine American foreign policy,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit lists the names of Americans who were killed or injured and circumstances of the attacks that compelled the allegations against Iran and North Korea.

One of them was Stephen Troell, who worked at an English language institute in Baghdad.

In November, 2022, a group of operatives associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard allegedly surrounded Troell’s car as he drove home from work with his wife. The gunmen forced the car to a stop near the Troells’ home.

As they approached Troell, one of them shot him with an assault weapon as his wife watched from the passenger seat, according to the plaintiffs.

“He died on Nov. 7, 2022, as a result of injuries that he sustained during the attack,” the lawsuit says.

A second American victim listed in the lawsuit was Dustin Harrison, who was killed on Jan. 5, 2020 by Al-Shabab extremists at a military base at Manda Bay, Kenya.

He was a civilian pilot working as a Defense Department contractor when between 30 and 40 extremists killed him and two other Americans. They also destroyed a half-dozen U.S. aircraft and vehicles.

His wife, Hope, posted on Facebook afterward saying, “Received the heart wrenching call this evening that my beautiful husband was one of the casualties from the terrorist [attack] that took place early this morning. My world is completely a nightmare at the moment.”

In addition to providing weapons and training, Iran and North Korea financed the terrorism and gave the operatives “incentive payments” to kill or maim Americans, according to the lawsuit.

Some of the funding could allegedly be traced to Virginia, where the lawsuit was filed.

One example listed in the lawsuit was a cigarette smuggling scheme Hezbollah agents orchestrated by taking advantage of the low tax on cigarettes in Virginia but higher taxes in other states.

They allegedly would buy as many as 20,000 cartons of cigarettes per week in Virginia and resell them in New Jersey and other states, eventually raising $65 million in profits that they used to fund terrorist activities.

Hezbollah also is accused in the lawsuit of illegal narcotics dealing and money laundering. Its agents would coordinate multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Colombia to the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel for eventual sales in the United States, the lawsuit says.

Part of the money then would go back to the Colombians while Hezbollah kept the rest, the lawsuit says. The mastermind, Ayman Jourmaa, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia but remains a fugitive.

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act has rarely resulted in an enforceable judgment against the perpetrators of terrorism since it was approved by Congress in 1976. The judgments against foreign governments or their proxies are normally considered symbolic denunciations of their tactics.

They have included a judgment against Iran for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 U.S. Navy sailors and injured dozens. A federal court in Washington, D.C., awarded the victims nearly $2 billion in compensation but the Iranians never paid it.

If the victims of the lawsuit filed last week against Iran and North Korea win in court, they might be eligible for compensation through the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund. It is funded by sanctions and fines on businesses that deal with state sponsors of terrorism.

The case is Alkhalili, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, No. 1:25-cv-601 (E.D. Va.).

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