The US and UK have imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran as retribution for its retaliatory attack on Israel.
According to a US Department of the Treasury statement,the measures targeted 16 individuals and two entities enabling Iran’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) production, including engine types that power Iran’s Shahed variant UAVs, which were used in the April 13 attack.
Tehran says it launched the April 13 attack in retaliation for Israel’s suspected April 1 strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Israel has said that it will retaliate.
The US Treasury said that it was also designating five companies in multiple jurisdictions providing component materials for steel production to Iran’s Khuzestan Steel Company (KSC), one of Iran’s largest steel producers, or purchasing KSC’s finished steel products.
Three subsidiaries of Iranian automaker Bahman Group, which it said had materially supported Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were also targeted.
The US statement came a day after Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the G7 industrial democracies said, after a meeting that they would “ensure close coordination of any future measure to diminish Iran’s ability to acquire, produce, or transfer weapons to support destabilizing regional activities.”
“We will continue to deploy our sanctions authority to counter Iran with further actions in the days and weeks ahead,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
“Today, we are holding Iran accountable — imposing new sanctions and export controls,” U.S President Joe Biden also said in a statement.
“As I discussed with my fellow G7 leaders the morning after the attack, we are committed to acting collectively to increase economic pressure on Iran.
“And our allies and partners have or will issue additional sanctions and measures to restrict Iran’s destabilizing military programs.”
Joe Biden
The statement said that concurrent with the US Treasury action, the UK was also imposing sanctions on Iran.
An official notice showed that the UK placed sanctions on Iranian military entities, including the General Staff of the Armed Forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy.
The British sanctions target 13 entities or individuals in total, the notice showed.
Iran To Review Its “Nuclear Doctrine” After Israeli Threats
Also on Thursday, April 18, 2024, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned that it would attack Israel’s nuclear sites and may pursue a nuclear weapon if the country strikes at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The development came after Israeli officials promised a response to Iran’s attack on Israel last week, which were a retaliation for the Israeli military’s suspected targeting of Tehran’s consulate in Syria.
“The nuclear facilities of the Zionist enemy have been identified and all the necessary information from all targets is at our disposal,” the IRGC’s Brigadier General, Ahmad Haghtalab was quoted as saying by Iran’s semiofficial news website.
Haghtalab, the Commander of the IRGC division that is tasked with protecting Iranian nuclear facilities, stated, “Our fingers are on the trigger of firing strong missiles to destroy the designated targets in response to a potential attack by them.”
Haghtalab also gave what is Iran’s highest-level and most direct warning yet, that it may abandon its stated policy of refraining from building a nuclear bomb.
“If the fake Zionist regime wants to use the threat of attacking the nuclear centres of our country as a tool, reconsidering the doctrine and policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and deviating from previously stated considerations would be likely and imaginable,” he said.
