Despite a second-term pledge to end US involvement in costly and destructive foreign wars, President Donald Trump has initiated a full-scale offensive to topple the Iranian government just more than a year after returning to office.

The attacks on Iran, considered a violation of international law, mark the most aggressive escalation yet of Trump’s embrace of military power to pummel foreign governments and extract concessions demanded by his administration.

Despite widespread scepticism among the US public about Trump’s military campaigns abroad, his administration has carried out brash attacks on the governments of Iran and Venezuela, while also stepping up US strikes in the name of counterterrorism in Africa and the Middle East.

Here’s a quick look at Trump’s military actions abroad since returning to office in January 2025.

Iran

The joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran that began on Saturday morning Tehran time have so far killed at least 201 people, according to the Iranian Red Crescent, and fuelled fears about a widening war that could bring chaos and destruction to countries across the region.

The US strikes, which Trump said were “major combat operations” aimed at regime change in Tehran, appear far more extensive than a previous US attack on Iran in June 2025.

Those strikes, which, like the current attacks, took place as Iran was engaged in diplomatic talks with the US, targeted Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

Trump said that the attacks, which took place during a 12-day war launched by Israel against Iran that killed more than 600 Iranians, had “obliterated” the country’s nuclear capabilities.

Both US attacks on Iran are considered illegal under international law.

Venezuela

The Trump administration carried out an attack on Venezuela in January 2026, bombing the capital, Caracas, and abducting President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime figure of US ire.

The Venezuelan minister of defence said that 83 people were killed in the attack, including members of the Venezuelan and Cuban security services, as well as Venezuelan civilians.

Boat strikes in Latin America

Since September, the US has carried out at least 45 strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels in Latin America and the Caribbean, killing at least 151 people, according to a tally from the watchdog group Airwars.

Trump and his allies have framed the strikes as an effort to combat regional narcotics trafficking and have declared several criminal groups as foreign terrorist organisations, stating that drug trafficking is the equivalent of an armed attack on the US.

UN officials and international law experts have roundly rejected those arguments, stating that the strikes are a campaign of illegal extrajudicial killings that erase the distinction between criminal activity and armed conflict.

Nigeria

The Trump administration has also stepped up military operations in Africa, expanding collaboration with local governments and carrying out air strikes 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 US strikes 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 that the largely debunked claim miscasts widespread and violent civil conflict that has racked the country for years as a case of anti-Christian persecution.

Trump announced that the US had carried out “powerful and deadly” attacks targeting what he said were members of ISIL (ISIS) affiliates in northwestern Nigeria in December 2025, with the government’s cooperation.

Questions have emerged about whether the targets struck were in fact associated with ISIL, which is not known to operate in the region 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-Shabab and a regional offshoot of ISIL.

The US has massively stepped up air strikes in Somalia during Trump’s second term, with the New America Foundation finding that the US carried out at least 111 attacks in 2025. Monitors say the figure surpasses the total of attacks under the George W Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations combined.

Yemen

The US launched dozens of naval and air strikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebel group between March and May of 2025, destroying infrastructure and killing dozens of civilians.

The Houthis had 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

The US conducted strikes on ISIL targets in Syria in December 2025, following an attack that killed two US soldiers and a translator in the city of Palymra.

Trump said the US was “inflicting very serious retaliation” on those responsible for the attack, which the Syrian government said was carried out by an employee of the state security services who was set to be expelled due to his hardline views.

Iraq

The US killed a high-profile ISIL commander in a strike in the al-Anbar province of Iraq in March 2025.

The group’s second-in-command, Abdallah “Abu Khadijah” Malli Muslih al-Rifai, and another unnamed operative were reported to have been killed in the strikes.

“His miserable life was terminated, along 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!”