Bolton: U.S. Counterterrorism strategy puts focus on Iran

The Trump administration is giving greater priority to Iran and radical groups it backs in a new U.S. counterterrorism strategy document, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton said.

"In addition, the United States faces terrorist threats from Iran, which remains the most prominent state sponsor of terrorism, really the world’s central banker of international terrorism since 1979," Reuters cited him as saying.

"Iran-sponsored terrorist groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad continue to pose a threat to the United States and our interests," Bolton stressed.

The National Security Adviser described "radical Islamist terrorist groups" as the pre-eminent transnational terrorist threat to the U.S. and its interests abroad.

Bolton acknowledged that "additional challenges do remain" despite U.S.-backed forces having taken most of the areas of Syria and Iraq overrun by ISIS several years ago.