US, UK, Canada issue new Iran sanctions ahead of anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death

A general view shows the Iranian capital Tehran on Jan. 7, 2023, with the Iranian flag fluttering in the wind. (AFP)
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Updated 16 September 2023
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US, UK, Canada issue new Iran sanctions ahead of anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death

  • US sanctions target 29 people and groups, including 18 key members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces
  • Britain, Canada and the EU separately announced its sanctions targeting senior Iranian decision-makers

WASHINGTON: The US, Britain and Canada on Friday imposed more sanctions on Iran ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini whilst in Iran’s morality police custody, which sparked months of anti-government protests that faced an often violent crackdown.
Amini, 22, died on Sept. 16 last year after being arrested for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic’s mandatory dress code. Her death sparked months of anti-government protests that marked the biggest show of opposition to Iranian authorities in years. Iranian security forces have been deployed in her hometown in anticipation of unrest this weekend.
The US, Britain, and Canada, along with the European Union, have announced multiple rounds of sanctions against Iran, citing the widespread and often violent crackdown on protests after the death of Amini.
“Mahsa’s tragic and senseless death in the custody of Iran’s so-called ‘Morality Police’ sparked demonstrations across Iran that were met with unspeakable violence, mass arrests, systemic Internet disruptions and censorship by the Iranian regime,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

 


“We will continue to take appropriate action, alongside our international partners, to hold accountable those who suppress Iranians’ exercise of human rights,” he said, adding that Canada, Australia, and other partners were also imposing sanctions this week.
The US Treasury Department in a separate statement said it imposed sanctions on more than two dozen people and entities it said were connected to Iran’s “violent suppression” of protests in the wake of Amini’s death its crack down on dissenting voices and restrictions to Internet.
The action targets 29 people and groups, including 18 key members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces, as well as the head of Iran’s Prisons Organizations, the department said. They also target officials linked to Iran’s Internet blockade and several media outlets.
The sanctions target LEF spokesperson Saeed Montazerolmehdi, multiple LEF and IRGC commanders, and Iran’s Prisons Organization chief Gholamali Mohammadi.
Douran Software Technologies CEO Alireza Abedinejad as well as state-controlled media organizations Press TV, Tasnim News Agency and Fars News were also among those sanctioned.
“The United States ... will continue to take collective action against those who suppress Iranians’ exercise of their human rights,” the Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in the statement.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Washington would have more sanctions in coming days.
“We’ll continue to sanction Iranian behavior, whether it is flouting basic norms of human rights contained in the Universal Declaration or it’s relative to the work that Iran is doing to provide weapons to Russia to kill Ukrainian civilians, and we’ll have more designations on that in the coming days,” Sullivan told reporters.
The US has taken several actions targeting the supply of Iranian drones to Russia, reflecting its concerns about Iranian-Russian military cooperation and Russia’s use of Iranian drones in its conflict with Ukraine.
Britain separately announced its sanctions targeting senior Iranian decision makers, including Iran’s minister for culture and Islamic guidance, his deputy, the mayor of Tehran and an Iranian police spokesman.

 

 


Canada’s sanctions package announced on Friday, which was its fourteenth since October last year against Iran, listed restrictions against six individuals. They included members of the IRGC and the “Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution,” the Canadian government said.
The EU added four Iranian officials to its sanctions blacklist over a crackdown on demonstrators.
The 27-nation bloc has already imposed visa bans and asset freezes on around 170 Iranian individuals, companies and agencies over the repression.
The four officials targeted included a commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, two regional police chiefs and a prison boss.
Four prisons, a news agency associated with the Guards and the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, which monitors the Internet, were also placed on the blacklist.
In a statement, the EU’s 27 nations said they “reaffirm their strong support for the fundamental rights of Iranian women and men and their aspirations.”
“We continue to consider all appropriate options at our disposal to address any issues of concern,” they said.
(With Reuters and AFP)

 


Lebanon says one killed in renewed Israeli strike near Sidon

Updated 7 sec ago
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Lebanon says one killed in renewed Israeli strike near Sidon

  • Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon
Beirut: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on Friday hit a vehicle near the southern coastal city of Sidon, killing one person.
Despite a November 27 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of conflict — including two months of all-out war — between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon.
“The attack carried out by the Israeli enemy against a car on the Sidon-Ghaziyeh road resulted in one dead,” said a health ministry statement on the fourth consecutive day of Israeli attacks on the south where Israel says it has targeted Hezbollah militants.
An AFP journalist said the Israeli attack hit a four-wheel-drive vehicle, sending a pillar of black smoke into the sky.
The Lebanese army sealed off the area as firemen fought the blaze.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the strike, but the Israeli military has said it was behind previous attacks this week that it said killed members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
Hezbollah, significantly weakened by the war, insists it is adhering to the November ceasefire, even as Israeli attacks persist.

Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strikes

Updated 3 min 43 sec ago
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Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strikes

  • On Thursday the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Friday that 15 people, including 10 from the same family, had been killed in two overnight Israeli strikes.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said on Telegram that “our crews recovered the bodies of 10 martyrs and a large number of wounded from the house of the Baraka family and the neighboring houses targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Bani Suhaila area east of Khan Yunis,” in the southern Gaza Strip.
Bassal later announced that a separate strike hit two houses in northern Gaza’s Tal Al-Zaatar, where crews had “recovered the bodies of five people.”
The Israeli military, which did not immediately comment, has intensified its aerial bombardments and expanded its ground operations in the Gaza Strip since it resumed its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory on March 18.
On Thursday, the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes, most of them in camps for displaced civilians, as Israel pressed its offensive.


Israeli military intercepts missile launched from Yemen

Updated 18 April 2025
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Israeli military intercepts missile launched from Yemen

  • Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Friday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, from where the Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” Israel’s army said on Telegram, adding that aerial defense systems had been deployed “to intercept the threat.”


US strike on Yemen fuel port kills at least 38, Houthi media say

Updated 38 min ago
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US strike on Yemen fuel port kills at least 38, Houthi media say

WASHINGTON: US strikes on a fuel port in Yemen killed at least 38 people on Thursday, Houthi-run media said, one of the deadliest days since the United States began its attacks on the Iran-backed militants.

The United States has vowed not to halt the large-scale strikes begun last month in its biggest military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January, unless the Houthis cease attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Al Masirah TV said 102 people were also wounded in Thursday’s strikes on the western fuel port of Ras Isa, which the US military said aimed to cut off a source of fuel for the Houthi militant group.

Responding to a Reuters query for comment on the Houthis’ casualty figure and its own estimate, the US Central Command said it had none beyond the initial announcement of the attacks.

“The objective of these strikes was to degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis, who continue to exploit and bring great pain upon their fellow countrymen,” it had said in a post on X.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of drone and missile attacks on vessels transiting the waterway, saying they were targeting ships linked to Israel in protest over the war in Gaza.

They halted attacks on shipping lanes during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza. Although they vowed to resume strikes after Israel renewed its assault on Gaza last month, they have not claimed any since.

In March, two days of US attacks killed more than 50 people, Houthi officials said.

Palestinian militant group Hamas on Friday denounced overnight US strikes on a Yemeni fuel port that killed dozens of people as Washington renewed its campaign against Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

"This blatant aggression represents a gross violation of Yemeni sovereignty, a full-fledged war crime, and reaffirms the continuation of hostile American policies targeting the free peoples who reject Zionist and American hegemony in the region," Hamas said in a statement.


Cash crunch leaves Syrians queueing for hours to collect salaries

Updated 18 April 2025
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Cash crunch leaves Syrians queueing for hours to collect salaries

  • Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception
  • The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet

DAMASCUS: Seated on the pavement outside a bank in central Damascus, Abu Fares’s face is worn with exhaustion as he waits to collect a small portion of his pension.
“I’ve been here for four hours and I haven’t so much as touched my pension,” said the 77-year-old, who did not wish to give his full name.
“The cash dispensers are under-stocked and the queues are long,” he continued.
Since the overthrow of president Bashar Assad last December, Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception.
Decades of punishing sanctions imposed on the Assad dynasty – which the new authorities are seeking to have lifted – have left about 90 percent of Syrians under the poverty line, according to the United Nations.
The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet.
Prior to his ousting, Assad’s key ally Russia held a monopoly on printing banknotes. The new authorities have only announced once that they have received a shipment of banknotes from Moscow since Assad’s overthrow.
In a country with about 1.25 million public sector employees, civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs to make withdrawals, capped at about 200,000 Syrian pounds, the equivalent on the black market of $20 per day.
In some cases, they have to take a day off just to wait for the cash.
“There are sick people, elderly... we can’t continue like this,” said Abu Fares.
“There is a clear lack of cash, and for that reason we deactivate the ATMs at the end of the workday,” an employee at a private bank said, preferring not to give her name.
A haphazard queue of about 300 people stretches outside the Commercial Bank of Syria. Some are sitting on the ground.
Afraa Jumaa, a civil servant, said she spends most of the money she withdraws on the travel fare to get to and from the bank.
“The conditions are difficult and we need to withdraw our salaries as quickly as possible,” said the 43-year-old.
“It’s not acceptable that we have to spend days to withdraw meagre sums.”
The local currency has plunged in value since the civil war erupted in 2011, prior to which the dollar was valued at 50 pounds.
Economist Georges Khouzam explained that foreign exchange vendors – whose work was outlawed under Assad – “deliberately reduced cash flows in Syrian pounds to provoke rapid fluctuations in the market and turn a profit.”
Muntaha Abbas, a 37-year-old civil servant, had to return three times to withdraw her entire salary of 500,000 pounds.
“There are a lot of ATMs in Damascus, but very few of them work,” she said.
After a five-hour wait, she was finally able to withdraw 200,000 pounds.
“Queues and more queues... our lives have become a series of queues,” she lamented.