Iran’s extremist militias and their proxies were behind a recent string of terror attacks against Israeli diplomatic targets around the globe and might seek to strike the United States, U.S. counterterrorism officials said Wednesday, September 19, The Washington Times reported. “We have seen an uptick in operational activity by the Quds Force over the last year or so,” National Counter-Terrorism Center Director Matthew G. Olsen told a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Olsen said the Quds Force, the elite division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for operations abroad, “poses a threat beyond the immediate [Middle East] region,” including to the U.S. homeland. He cited the federal prosecution last year of a senior member of the force for involvement in a failed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. by bombing a Washington restaurant.