US again lashes Iran as terror sponsor

In an annual report on terrorism released the same day as a new UN assessment of Iran's nuclear activities, the State Department portrayed Iran as a troublemaker on several Middle East fronts.

"Iran remained the most active state sponsor," the department said, keeping it at the top of a blacklist of half a dozen countries that includes Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

The report said the Iranians were backing Palestinian militants bent on the destruction of Israel, the radical Islamist movement Hezbollah and groups in Iraq responsible for sectarian violence.

"Iran is working directly with some of the Iraqi paramilitary forces (and) militias," Henry Crumpton, the department's coordinator on counter-terrorism, told a news conference. "They provide support, financial and otherwise."

Crumpton said some of the more lethal improvised explosive devices used by Iraqi insurgents to attack US forces came from Iran, and "our assumption is that the Iranian government was involved."

The report was issued as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, declared Iran in non-compliance with a Security Council injunction to halt its sensitive work on uranium enrichment.