WASHINGTON — The United States on Thursday announced sanctions against a group of Iranian and Turkish people and firms accused of plotting to assassinate former U.S. government officials, dual U.S. and Iranian nationals, and dissidents.
Three Iran- and Turkey-based people; a company affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, which is a branch of the country’s military; and two senior officials of Iran’s Intelligence Organization are accused of being involved in plotting to kill journalists and activists, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
The sanctions against them block all access to their U.S. money and property and prohibit Americans and American firms from working with them.
The U.S. remains focused on disrupting plots by the Iranian military, which has “engaged in numerous assassination attempts and other acts of violence and intimidation against those they deem enemies of the Iranian regime,” Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian E. Nelson, said in a statement.
Several alleged assassination plots have been uncovered in recent years.
An Iranian operative, Shahram Poursafi, was charged last year in a plot to kill former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful general, Qassem Soleimani. Poursafi was accused by the Justice Department of offering $300,000 to…
