US, UK slaps sanctions on Iran

The United States and the United Kingdom announced widespread sanctions against Iran’s military drone programme on Thursday in response to its recent direct attack against Israel.

Washington is targeting “16 individuals and two entities enabling Iran’s UAV production, including engine types that power Iran’s Shahed variant UAVS, which were used in the April 13 attack,” the Treasury Department said in a statement, referring to Iran’s unmanned aerial vehicle programme.

The US Treasury Department statement said the measures targeted 16 individuals and two entities enabling Iran’s UAV production, including engine types that power Iran’s Shahed variant UAVS, which were used in the April 13 attack.

Treasury said it was also designating five companies in multiple jurisdictions providing component materials for steel production to Iran’s Khuzestan Steel Company (KSC), one of Iran’s largest steel producers, or purchasing KSC’S finished steel products.

Also targeted, the statement said, were three subsidiaries of Iranian automaker Bahman Group, which it said had materially supported Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The statement said that concurrent with the Treasury action, Britain was imposing sanctions targeting several

Iranian military organisations, individuals and entities involved in Iran’s UAV and ballistic missile industries.

The US statement came after finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven industrial democracies said after a meeting in Wednesday that they would “ensure close coordination of any future measure to diminish Iran’s ability to acquire, produce, or transfer weapons to support destabilising regional activities.”

European Union leaders also decided on Wednesday to step up sanctions against Iran after Tehran’s missile and drone attack on Israel left world powers scrambling to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East

Tehran says it launched the April 13 attack in retaliation for Israel’s suspected April 1 strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

— Reuters An Iranian drone is seen during the National Army Day parade ceremony in Tehran on Wednesday.