WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (AFP): The United States will Thursday order sanctions against the Iranian military, media reports said a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice singled out Iran as the biggest threat to US security.
Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are to designate Iran's elite Quds force as a supporter of terrorism and its Revolutionary Guards as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction, triggering economic sanctions, the Washington Post and New York Times reported.
The sanctions allow efforts to financially isolate Iran's military and press hundreds of foreign companies doing business with it to back out or risk US sanctions, the newspapers reported.
These will be the broadest sanctions imposed on Iran since the country's Islamic revolution in 1979 and comes as the international community is embroiled in a mounting standoff over Iran's nuclear program.
It is also the first the United States has directly sanctioned another country's military, the Post said.
The Quds Force, the foreign operations branch of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, runs Tehran's covert activities throughout the Middle East, though its existence has never been officially acknowledged.
US to order sanctions against Iran military
FE Team | Published: October 26, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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