Despite a second-term pledge to end US involvement in costly and destructive foreign wars, President Donald Trump has launched a full-scale offensive to topple the Iranian government just a year after returning to office.
The attacks on Iran, considered a violation of international law, mark the most aggressive escalation Trump has embraced of military power to topple foreign governments and extract concessions demanded from their regimes.
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Despite widespread skepticism among the US public about Trump’s military operations abroad, his administration has carried out brash attacks on the governments of Iran and Venezuela, while increasing US strikes in Africa and the Middle East in the name of counter-terrorism.
Here’s a quick look at Trump’s military actions abroad since returning to office in January 2025.
Iran
Joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 201 people since Saturday morning Tehran time, according to Iran’s Red Crescent, and have raised fears of a wider war that could bring chaos and devastation to countries across the region.
The US strikes, which Trump said were “major military operations” aimed at regime change in Tehran, appear to be more widespread than the previous US attack on Iran in June 2025.
Those strikes, like the current attacks, targeted Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan while Iran was engaged in diplomatic talks with the US.
Trump said the attacks, which took place during Israel’s 12-day war against Iran that killed more than 600 Iranians, had “wiped out” the country’s nuclear capabilities.
Both US attacks on Iran are considered illegal under international law.
Venezuela
The Trump administration invaded Venezuela in January 2026, bombing the capital Caracas and kidnapping President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime figure of US ire.
Venezuela’s defense minister said 83 people were killed in the attack, including members of the Venezuelan and Cuban security services and Venezuelan citizens.
Boat strikes in Latin America
Since September, the US has carried out at least 45 strikes on alleged drug-trafficking ships in Latin America and the Caribbean, killing at least 151 people, according to a tally by the watchdog group AirWars.
Trump and his allies have framed the strikes as an effort to combat regional drug trafficking and have designated several criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations, saying drug trafficking is tantamount to an armed attack on the US.
UN officials and international legal experts have roundly rejected those arguments, saying the strikes are a campaign of illegal extrajudicial killings that blur the distinction between criminal activity and armed conflict.
Nigeria
The Trump administration has stepped up military operations in Africa, expanding cooperation with local governments and conducting airstrikes under the guise of counterterrorism.
In Nigeria, Trump has carried out a series of attacks and deployed 100 US military personnel to train Nigerian forces, threatening a US strike if the government does not do more to address what Trump says is a “genocide” of Christians in Nigeria by Muslim groups.
Nigerian officials say the largely denied claim misrepresents the widespread and violent civil conflict that has engulfed the country for years as a case of anti-Christian persecution.
Trump announced in December 2025 that the US had carried out “powerful and deadly” strikes targeting what he said were members of ISIL (ISIS) affiliates in northwestern Nigeria in cooperation with the government.
Questions have emerged as to whether the targets struck were actually linked to ISIL, which is not known to operate in the area targeted in the strikes.
Somalia
The Trump administration has expanded US military engagement in Somalia, where it has long worked with the government to counter armed groups such as al-Shabaab and the regional branch of ISIL.
The U.S. has massively increased airstrikes in Somalia during Trump’s second term, according to the New America Foundation, which found that the U.S. will carry out at least 111 strikes in 2025. Monitors say the figure surpasses the combined attacks of the administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Yemen
Between March and May 2025, the US launched dozens of naval and airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebel group, destroying infrastructure and killing dozens of civilians.
The Houthis have carried out attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea as a form of pressure on Israel to end its genocidal war on Gaza.
Human Rights Watch said in June that a US strike on the country’s Ras Isa port in Hodeidah in April 2025 killed more than 80 civilians and should be investigated as a war crime.
A ceasefire brokered by Oman was announced in May.
Syria
In December 2025, the US carried out strikes against ISIL targets in Syria, following an attack that killed two US soldiers and a translator in the city of Polymra.
Trump said the US was “retaliating very seriously” against those responsible for the attack, which the Syrian government said was carried out by an employee of the state security services ousted from its hard-line views.
Iraq
In March 2025, the US killed a high-level ISIL commander in a strike in Iraq’s Al-Anbar province.
The group’s second-in-command, Abdullah “Abu Khadijah” Malli Muslih al-Rifa’i, and another anonymous activist were reportedly killed in the strikes.
“His miserable life was ended with another member of ISIS in coordination with the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government,” Trump said in a social media post at the time. “Peace through strength!”
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