Timeline of tensions and hostilities between Israel and Iran

Israel and Iran opened a new chapter in their long history of conflict when Israel launched a major attack with strikes early Friday that set off explosions in the Iranian capital of Tehran.

Israel said it targeted nuclear and military facilities, killing Iran's top military and nuclear scientists.

Israel’s attack comes as tensions have escalated over Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, which Israel sees as a threat to its existence.

Here is a timeline of some significant events in the hostilities between the two countries:

1967 — Iran takes possession of its Tehran Research Reactor under America’s “Atoms for Peace” program.

1979 — Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fatally ill, flees Iran as popular protests against him surge. Pahlavi maintained economic and security ties with Israel. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran and the Islamic Revolution sweeps him to power. Students seize the United States Embassy in Tehran, beginning the 444-day hostage crisis. Iran’s nuclear program goes fallow under international pressure. Iran's new theocracy identifies Israel as a major enemy.

August 2002 — Western intelligence services and an Iranian opposition group reveal Iran’s secret Natanz nuclear enrichment facility.

June 2003 — Britain, France and Germany engage Iran in nuclear negotiations.

October 2003 — Iran suspends uranium enrichment.

February 2006 — Iran announces it will restart uranium enrichment following the election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Britain, France and Germany walk out of stalled negotiations.

June 2009 — Iran’s disputed presidential election sees Ahmadinejad reelected despite fraud allegations, sparking Green Movement protests and violent government crackdown.

October 2009 — Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. and Iran open a secret backchannel for messages in the sultanate of Oman.

2010 — The Stuxnet computer virus is discovered and widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation. The virus disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges.

July 14, 2015 — World powers and Iran announce a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limits Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

2018 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel obtained tens of thousands of pages of data showing Iran covered up its nuclear program before signing a deal with world powers in 2015. An ex-Mossad chief confirms the information was obtained by more than a dozen non-Israeli agents from safes in Tehran in 2018. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdraws from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers.

2020 — Alleged Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear program are stepped up significantly after the disintegration of the 2015 nuclear deal meant to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

July 2020 — A mysterious explosion tears apart a centrifuge production plant at Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. Iran blames the attack on Israel.

November 2020 — A top Iranian military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran. A top Iranian security official accuses Israel of using “electronic devices” to remotely kill the scientist, who founded Iran's military nuclear program in the 2000s.

April 11, 2021 — An attack targets Iran’s underground nuclear facility in Natanz. Iran blames Israel, which does not claim responsibility, but Israeli media widely reports the government orchestrated a cyberattack that caused a blackout at the facility.

April 16, 2021 — Iran begins enriching uranium up to 60%, its highest purity ever and a technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

June 2022 — Iran accuses Israel of poisoning two nuclear scientists in different cities within three days of each other, though circumstances remain unclear.

Oct. 7, 2023 — Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip storm into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage, beginning the most intense war between Israel and Hamas. Iran, which has armed Hamas, offers support to the militants.

Feb. 14, 2024 — An Israeli sabotage attack causes multiple explosions on an Iranian natural gas pipeline running from Iran’s western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province to cities on the Caspian Sea.

April 1, 2024 — An Israeli airstrike demolishes Iran’s Consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing 16 people, including two Iranian generals.

April 14, 2024 — Iran launches an unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel, firing over 300 missiles and attack drones in response to the Israeli airstrike in Damascus. Working with a U.S.-led international coalition, Israel intercepts much of the incoming fire.

April 19, 2024 — A suspected Israeli strike hits an air defense system near an airport in Isfahan, Iran.

July 31, 2024 — Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is assassinated by an apparent Israeli airstrike during a visit to Tehran. Israel had pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the Oct. 7 attack.

Sept. 27, 2024 — Israeli airstrike kills Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Formed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard members who went to Lebanon in 1982 to fight invading Israeli forces, Hezbollah was the first group that Iran backed and used as a way to export its brand of political Islam.

Oct. 1, 2024 — Iran launches its second direct attack on Israel, though a U.S.-led coalition and Israel shoot down most of the missiles.

Oct. 16, 2024 — Israel kills Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip.

Oct. 26, 2024 — Israel openly attacks Iran for the first time, striking air defense systems and sites associated with its missile program.

April 30, 2025 — Iran executes a man it said worked for Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence agency and played a role in the killing of Revolutionary Guard Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei in Tehran on May 22, 2022.

Friday, June 13, 2025 — Israel launches blistering attacks on the heart of Iran’s nuclear and military structure, deploying warplanes and drones previously smuggled into the country to assault key facilities and kill top generals and scientists.

Saturday, June 14, 2025 — Israel expands its airstrikes to include targets in Iran's energy industry as Iranian missile and drone attacks continue on Israel.

Sunday, June 15, 2025 — Israel unleashes airstrikes across Iran for a third day and threatens even greater force as some Iranian missiles evade Israeli air defenses to strike buildings in the heart of the country. Planned talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Oman between the United States and Tehran, which could provide an off-ramp, are called off.

Iranian protesters hold up Iranian and Palestinian flags in an anti-Israeli gathering in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The FBI said Friday it had disrupted a plot to attack a North Carolina grocery store and fast-food restaurant on New Year's Eve, arresting a man who officials said was inspired by the Islamic State group and had pledged loyalty to the extremist militants.

Christian Sturdivant, 18, was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terror organization after officials say he communicated his attack plans to an undercover FBI employee who was posing as an encouraging confidant.

He was arrested by federal agents on Wednesday. He remained held following a Friday morning court appearance. Another hearing is set for Jan. 7. The lawyer representing Sturdivant in federal court on Friday didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

An FBI affidavit filed in the case said Sturdivant came under investigation last month following information that a social media account, which officials connected to Sturdivant, had made posts supportive of IS. Those included posts that depicted a ballistic vest and appeared to promote violence, the affidavit said, and the display name for the account referenced the name of the late IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Sturdivant began communicating on social media with someone who he thought was supportive of his plans but who was actually an undercover FBI employee, the affidavit said.

Russ Ferguson, the U.S. Attorney for western North Carolina, declined to name the grocery store and fast-food restaurant that were allegedly targeted, citing the ongoing investigation. But he said both were in Mint Hill, a small bedroom community of Charlotte.

The affidavit says Sturdivant had been on the FBI's radar in January 2022, when he was a minor, after officials learned that he had been in contact with an IS member in Europe and had received instructions to dress in all black, knock on people's doors and commit attacks with a hammer.

Sturdivant did actually set out for a neighbor's house armed with a hammer and a knife but was restrained by his grandfather, the affidavit says.

The North Carolina attack would’ve come a year after 14 people were killed in New Orleans by a U.S. citizen and Army veteran who had proclaimed his support for IS on social media.

Other IS-inspired attacks over the past decade include a 2015 shooting rampage by a husband-and-wife team who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and a 2016 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who fatally shot 49 people.

The FBI has foiled several alleged attacks through sting operations in which agents posed as terror supporters, supplying advice and equipment. Critics say the strategy can amount to entrapment of mentally vulnerable people who wouldn’t have the wherewithal to act alone.

Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed.

FILE - An FBI seal is displayed on a podium before a news conference at the field office in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)