US imposes sanctions on 3 Iranian officials

WASHINGTON: The United States has targeted three Iranian security officials under human-rights related sanctions, the US Treasury Department said on Wednesday, citing Tehran’s ongoing crackdown on protesters and “increased aggressive actions against the Iranian people.”

Meanwhile, an improvised bomb has killed an Iranian colonel from the aerospace division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near Syria’s capital Damascus, Iranian media reported on Wednesday, blaming arch foe Israel.

“Colonel Davoud Jafari, one of Iran’s military advisers in Syria and a member of the Guards’ aerospace arm, was killed with a makeshit bomb planted by the roadside,” the Tasnim news agency reported citing a Guards statement.

The IRGC’S aerospace department manufactures drones, missiles and satellites.

Tasnim said Jafari was killed on Monday “by associates of the Zionist regime.”

It vowed that “undoubtedly, the criminal Zionist regime will receive the adequate response for this crime.”

Tehran accuses Israel of a campaign of assassinations, including of scientists involved in what Iran insists is a peaceful nuclear programme.

The Israeli air force destroyed what it said was an Iranian drone manufacturing plant located on Syrian territory on Oct.24.

Syrian authorities had not yet confirmed the killing of Jafari.

Britain-based war monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on sources in the county, reported Jafari was killed with his Syrian bodyguard when the bomb blast hit their vehicle.

The atack took place near Sayyida Zeinab, a south Damascus district that hosts a shrine revered by Shiite Muslims and is home to many Iranians.

Iran has begun enriching uranium to 60 per cent purity at its Fordow nuclear plant and plans a vast expansion of its enrichment capacity, the UN nuclear watchdog said late Tuesday, detailing the latest acceleration of Iran’s atomic program over Western objections.