On Wednesday, a group of terrorists attacked the Iranian parliament building and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini, killing at least twelve; Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility. Thomas Joscelyn explains the importance of this attack:

Osama bin Laden’s organization and its spin-off, IS, have fought against Iran’s proxies in Iraq and Syria for years. Killing Shiites is a blood sport for IS’s Sunni jihadists. And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s so-called caliphate reportedly has attempted to strike inside the mullahs’ country before. The group routinely agitates against the Iranians in its videos and propaganda statements. Yet it wasn’t until now that IS successfully attacked the heart of Tehran.

Al-Qaeda’s leadership long sought to rein in the anti-Shiite violence in Iraq. . . . [U]ntil 2014, [al-Qaeda in Iraq, which later became Islamic State], abided by an order from al-Qaeda’s leaders to avoid terrorist operations inside Iranian territory and against Shiites outside of Iraq. The two sides formally split in early 2014. At that point, IS [began] waging a campaign against Shiites throughout the region—and accusing al-Qaeda of being soft on them. . . .

To this day, however, al-Qaeda avoids attacks inside Iran—at least those that can be directly attributed to the organization. (It is possible that al-Qaeda supports other regional groups that occasionally target Iranian security forces on their home turf.) Files recovered during the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan explain this reticence. . . .

In October 2007, bin Laden wrote a letter to [what was then known as] the Islamic State of Iraq, [in which he] disapproved of its threats against Iran [and stated that] “Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel, and communication.” Bin Laden was not against targeting Iran in principle. He simply thought the cost was too high and the benefits al-Qaeda received from the relationship were significant. The “main artery” bin Laden referenced was later targeted in a series of terrorist designations, reward offers, and other official statements by the U.S. Treasury and State Departments.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.