The trump administration on Friday announced slapping fresh sanctions against eight senior Iranian officials for working to destabilise the region.
At a White House media briefing, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US had also imposed curbs on more than a dozen leading Iranian metal producers.
Mnuchin was quoted as saying by AFP: “As a result of these actions, we will cut off billions of dollars of support to the Iranian regime.”
Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, the Iranian armed forces deputy chief of staff and Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij militia, are among the Iranian officials targeted.
Seventeen Iranian metal producers and mining companies, including a network of three entities based in China and the Seychelles, were sanctioned.
The sanctions came in response to Iranian missile strikes on Iraqi military bases that house US forces. That raid was triggered by a US drone strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said the US would immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime.
