A mourner carrying a portrait of slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani during his funeral procession in Iran earlier this week
The United States on Friday imposed fresh sanctions on the Iranian regime, in retaliation to the targeting of US embassy and the air base in Iraq earlier this week. The Iranian strikes came in response to the killing of Quds top commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike on January 3.
Announcing the latest sanctions during a joint press conference in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that they were aimed at cutting off funds to Tehran to keep it from conducting its “violent foreign policy.”
A total of eight senior Iranian functionaries, namely Ali Shamkhani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Gholamreza Soleimani, the Commander of the Basij, and six other senior officials, have been individually targeted in the new sanctions.
“These individuals have carried out Iran’s terror plots and campaigns of mayhem across the region and are complicit in the recent murders of around 1,500 Iranians protesting for freedom,” a statement from the office of Pompeo said.
Further, Washington has also officially barred a metals trading company, Pamchel Trading (Beijing) Co., Ltd, as well as 22 other Iran-linked entities for allegedly funding the Iranian regime from the dollar trading system. Three commercial vessels involved in carrying out trade for Tehran have also been sanctioned, said the US State Department.
The State Department said that more sanctions were in the pipeline which would target Iran’s construction, manufacturing, textiles, and mining sectors.
"The President will also issue an Executive Order authorizing the imposition of sanctions with respect to additional sectors of the Iranian economy,” said the statement.
Declaring that the sanctions would continue to stay in force till Iran changed its “behaviour,” the State Department also called upon other governments to stand up to Iranian regime’s “ideology of terror.”
Also watch: Iran bids farewell to Qasem Soleimani
