The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has introduced sanctions against networks enabling Iran to disrupt the Middle East through "terrorist proxies," in particular those supporting Kata'ib Hizballah and Hizballah, it said on Thursday.
The measures extend the reach of Operation Economic Outcast, introduced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Aug. 24, and have a particular focus on choking off funds to Iran, including through smuggling of oil while the US maintains a blockade on Iran's ports, preventing the movement of cargoes of crude.
"Operation Economic Outcast is targeting those who continue to stand with the failing Iranian regime," said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. "Whether they finance terror, launder money, or help Iran evade sanctions, we will find them, cut them off from the U.S. financial system, and dismantle the networks keeping the regime afloat."
The new additions to the sanctions have been identified as having involvement with, among other things, smuggling of cash and gold to Lebanon. The individuals or entities are located across Iraq, Lebanon, the UAE and Turkey and "serve as Tehran's primary instruments for projecting violence, subversion, and global destabilization."
The statement said Hizballah and Kata'ib Hizballah were given the Specially Designated Global Terrorist, or SDGT, classification in 2001 and 2009, respectively.
The sanctions additions will include persons operating in oil, finance and petrochemicals among other sectors of Iran's economy, it said.
"Operation Economic Outcast is severing the remaining economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime. Treasury has mapped the networks, facilitators, and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions, and fund terror," the statement said.