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The United States announced that it had imposed sanctions on the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad, accusing him of trying to “destabilize Iraq” and its relations with Iraqi militias. Washington said the Iranian ambassador oversaw a program to train and support these militias, and led or supported groups responsible for attacks that killed and wounded US and coalition forces in Iraq. Washington also imposed sanctions on two senior officials from the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah.
On Thursday, the United States imposed sanctions on the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad, Iraj Masjedi, for his attempt to “destabilize” IraqAs a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, he also imposed sanctions on two members of the Lebanese Hezbollah Central Council.
According to the US Department of the Treasury, my mosque was a “close adviser” to the former commander of the Quds Force, the elite force responsible for foreign operations in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the United States. United in an airstrike near Baghdad airport last January.
The sanctions against the Iranian ambassador to Iraq come at a time when Washington has hardened its rhetoric against the missile attacks that have increasingly targeted its embassy in Baghdad and other interests in Iraq in recent months, and that the Americans accuse pro-Iranian Iraqi factions of being behind them.
“My mosque oversaw a program to train and support Iraqi militias and to lead or support the groups responsible for the attacks that killed and injured members of the US and coalition forces in Iraq,” the Treasury Department said in a release.
He added that Masjedi used his position as ambassador “to conceal financial transfers for the benefit of the Quds Force.”
“The Iranian regime threatens Iraq’s security and sovereignty by appointing Quds Force officials in the Revolutionary Guard as ambassadors to the region to administer its destabilizing foreign policy,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, according to the statement.
Sanctions against two senior Hezbollah officials
On Thursday, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on two senior officials of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah, the two members of the party’s Central Council, Sheikh Nabil Qaouk and Hassan Baghdadi.
In its statement, the ministry said that the imposition of these sanctions coincides “with the proximity of the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Hezbollah attack” on the US Marines in Beirut on October 23, 1983.
That day, 241 Marines were killed in a massive bombardment that destroyed their headquarters in the Lebanese capital. On the same day, 58 French paratroopers were killed in a similar bombing of their building in Beirut.
France 24 / AFP
