Washington (May 23, 2018): The United States imposed fresh sanctions on five members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) over their alleged efforts to provide missile support to Yemen’s Houthi militants, the Treasury Department said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Today, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated five Iranian individuals who have provided ballistic missile-related technical expertise to Yemen’s Huthis, and who have transferred weapons not seen in Yemen prior to the current conflict,” the statement said.
The new sanctions targeted IRGC officers Mehdi Azarpisheh, Mohammad Agha Jafari, Mahmud Kazemabad, Javad Amin and Sayyed Mohammad Tehrani, the statement added.
The Treasury explained that the US move to impose sanctions comes after the United Nations Panel of Experts confirmed in January that missiles used by the Houthis to attack Saudi Arabia were of Iranian origin.
“The United States will not tolerate Iranian support for Huthi rebels who are attacking our close partner, Saudi Arabia,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement. “All countries in the region should be on guard to prevent Iran from sending its personnel, weapons, and funds in support of its proxies in Yemen.”
Mnuchin specified that all five of the Iranians targeted are associated with the IRGC’s Qods Force, a military unit that commands operations outside Iran, and with the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program.
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