File photo of Irani flag. PHOTO: AFP/ FILE
The report cited a series of actual and planned attacks in Europe and Asia linked to Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanon-based ally, including a July 2012 bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli citizens and a Bulgarian, and wounded 32 others.
"The year 2012 was ... notable in demonstrating a marked resurgence of Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism," via Tehran's elite al Quds force, its intelligence ministry, and Hezbollah, the report said. "Iran and Hezbollah's terrorist activity has reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s."
There was no immediate reply to a request for comment from Iran's mission to the United Nations.
Last July, Iran's UN ambassador denied his country's involvement in the Bulgaria bombing, which he accused Israel of carrying out. "We have never, and will not, engage in such a despicable attempt on ... innocent people," Ambassador Mohammed Khazaee said.
The report's release comes as US and European officials and intelligence agencies say Iran and Hezbollah have stepped up their military backing for the besieged government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday publicly committed the group to an Assad victory over Syrian rebels who, like the Damascus government, have been accused of abuses in the two-year-old civil war.
"Both Iran and Hezbollah are providing a broad range of critical support to the Assad regime, as it continues its brutal crackdown against the Syrian people," the State Department report said.
The report covers events in 2012 and does not include such incidents as the Boston Marathon bombings in the United States or last week's brutal killing of a British soldier on a London street.
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