According to U.S. intelligence agencies, Iran paid bounties to the Taliban for attacking American and coalition troops in Afghanistan at least six times in 2019. The bounties included a payment to the Haqqani network, a Taliban faction, for launching a suicide attack against a U.S. air base at Bagram in December 2019.

The United States seized the cargo of four Venezuela-bound oil tankers alleged to be carrying Iranian petroleum after U.S. prosecutors filed a lawsuit in July seeking permission to intercept the ships. U.S. officials rerouted the ships, the Luna, Pandi, Bering, and Bella, to Houston. The four ships had been traveling with a flotilla escorted by an Iranian naval vessel but split off after U.S. authorities contacted the owners of the vessels. U.S. prosecutors allege that an Iranian businessman tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had arranged the shipments of oil to Venezuela through a series of shell companies. The four ships have ties to companies operated by the Greek businessmen Giorgios and Marios Gialozoglou. Some of these vessels had conducted ship-to-ship transfers, and one of the ships faced allegations of delivering oil to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. In a separate case, a U.S. judge awarded the United States the title to the Grace 1, a ship that U.S. authorities accused of delivering Iranian oil to Syria in 2019.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), composed of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, expressed its support for extending an arms embargo on Iran in a letter to the United Nations. The letter noted that Iran had "not ceased or desisted from armed interventions in neighboring countries, directly and through organizations and movements armed and trained by Iran." The letter accused Iran of arming members of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Shiite militias in Iraq, and militants in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The embargo blocks Iran from exporting arms and importing major weapon systems.

Unidentified warplanes launched airstrikes against Iranian positions near the Syrian city of Albukamal, which borders Iraq, according to a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The area hosts the Imam Ali military base, where pro-Iranian militias operate. The militias maintain other outposts that extend to the nearby city of Deir Ezzor, including the T-2, T-3, and T-4 bases. Airstrikes have hit these locations every month for over a year. The most recent airstrikes targeted Imam Ali, the area of al-Sekka, and the desert around Deir Ezzor, resulting in the deaths of fifteen militiamen and the destruction of weapons.