Illustrative: Members of the Iranian paramilitary Basij force, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, attend a rally in front of the former US Embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 25, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
WASHINGTON — The United States and six Gulf allies announced sanctions Wednesday on 25 entities associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror organization, in a move to tighten controls on both group’s finances.
The sanctions were set by Riyadh-based Terrorist Financing Targeting Center, a two-year-old group that includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in addition to the United States.
They targeted companies supporting the Basij Resistance Force, a paramilitary group subordinate to the Revolutionary Guard, that the Treasury said are used “to oppress domestic opposition with brutal displays of violence” and supply fighters to regional conflicts.
Among the 25 was Iranian Bank Mellat and mining, manufacturing and investment firms that allegedly support the Basij.
Hezbollah supporters take part in a rally to mark al-Quds day in Beirut, Lebanon, May 31, 2019. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Four of those listed were individuals running Hezbollah’s operations in Iraq, the Treasury said.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
All 25 have previously been named in US Treasury sanctions announced in 2018.
“The TFTC’s coordinated disruption of the financial networks used by the Iranian regime to fund terrorism is a powerful demonstration of Gulf unity,” said US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement.
“This action demonstrates the unified position of the Gulf nations and the United States that Iran will not be allowed to escalate its malign activity in the region,” said Mnuchin, who addressed a business forum in Riyadh on Wednesday.
Advertisement
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this,please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
