ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Washington has imposed new sanctions on Iranian and Iran-linked entities, including against its intelligence minister and a charity linked to the Supreme Leader in a new wave of measures before US President Donald Trump leaves office in January.
The US Department of Treasury published an updated list of designated individuals and entities to its website, including Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi and numerous figures linked to the Islamic Revolution Mostazafan Company – described in a Treasury statement as a “key patronage network” for the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“While Bonyad Mostazafan is ostensibly a charitable organization charged with providing benefits to the poor and oppressed, its holdings are expropriated from the Iranian people and are used by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to enrich his office, reward his political allies, and persecute the regime’s enemies,” it said.
Translated as the “Foundation of the Oppressed”, the foundation is the second-largest commercial enterprise in the country and is linked to both Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Intelligence Minister Alavi has been sanctioned for playing a “central role in the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses against Iranian citizens, including during the November 2019 protests,” Washington added.
At least 304 were killed during a bloody wave of oppression after protests sparked by a government hike in fuel prices last November, according to rights group Amnesty International.
The killings were facilitated by an internet blackout affording security forces impunity to target civilians, Amnesty said in a recent investigation.
“The United States will continue to target key officials and revenue generating sources that enable the regime’s ongoing repression of its own people,” Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said on Wednesday.
Washington began imposing new sanctions on Tehran following the US’ unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal in 2018. Tensions between the US and the Islamic Republic have been on the rise ever since, coming to a head with the US assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani near Baghdad International Airport in January.
The US imposed sanctions last week on groups and officials accused of providing an Iranian military firm with “sensitive goods.”
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