US sanctions five Iranian entities, Tehran’s ambassador to Iraq

The new sanctions apply to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the IRGC’s Qods Force, and the Bayan Gostar Media Institute for their role in Iranian attempts to interfere in the US elections.

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – The US Department of the Treasury announced on Thursday that it was sanctioning five Iranian entities for their attempts to influence the upcoming US presidential elections.

Proud Boys Spoof

The move by the Treasury Department followed a day after the Department of Homeland Security identified Iran as the party responsible for sending intimidating emails to Democratic party voters in Alaska, Arizona, and Florida. The emails purported to be from a right-wing group, the Proud Boys, and they warned, “You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you.”

The messages claimed that the sender was “in possession of all your information,” as if the sender had penetrated a database, and they included the recipient’s home address, making them appear particularly menacing.

The Proud Boys denied having sent the emails, and US intelligence was quick to identify Iran as their source.

The objective, the Director of National Intelligence said, was to undermine the candidacy of Donald Trump. Americans are deeply polarized politically, and many pundits, who presumably oppose Trump, responded that they could not see how those emails could hurt Trump.

To this reporter, however, it seemed reasonably clear. Word of the emails would become public—as it did—and some fraction of voters would blame Trump and his polarizing rhetoric.

Thursday’s Sanctions

The new sanctions apply to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the IRGC’s Qods Force, and the Bayan Gostar Media Institute for their role in Iranian attempts to interfere in the US elections.

In addition, the US also sanctioned the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU) and International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM), which it said were controlled by the Qods Force.

“Since at least 2015, Bayan Gostar has served as a front company” for Qods Force “propaganda efforts,” the Treasury Department said. “In the months leading up to the 2020 US presidential elections,” Bayan Gostar “has planned to influence the election by exploiting social issues with the United States, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and denigrating US political figures.”

“IRTVU, a propaganda arm” of the Qods Force, and IUVM “aided Bayan Gostar in efforts to reach US audiences,” it continued. They “amplified false narratives” and “posted disparaging propaganda,” intending “to sow discord among US audiences.”

Notably, the Treasury Department statement did not repeat the charge made the day before that Iran had been behind the purported Proud Boy emails.

Iran’s Ambassador to Iraq also Sanctioned

In addition to sanctioning those five entities for attempting to influence the US elections, the US also sanctioned Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Iraj Masjedi, for his ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Qods Force (IRGC-QF.)

Although Masjedi has been Tehran’s representative in Baghdad since 2017, the Treasury Department explained that he was also a general in the Qods Force.

“A close adviser to former IRGC-QF Commander, Qassem Soleimani, Masjedi played a formative role in the IRGC-QF’s Iraq policy,” the Treasury Department said.

As a Qods Force officer, Masjedi oversaw “a program of training and support to Iraqi militia groups” and “directed or supported” groups “responsible for attacks that have killed and wounded US and Coalition forces in Iraq” and that have also carried out “kidnappings and the assassination of Iraqi provincial officials who sought to curb Iranian influence in Iraq.”

Iraqi recruits to groups supported by the Qods Force were often trained inside Iran, the Treasury Department said, as it explained that this activity went back for over a decade, to the years when the US was engaged in the war that overthrew Saddam Hussein.

Called “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” the George W. Bush administration expected a quick victory and initially believed it had achieved that. However, the conflict, which began in 2003, lasted for eight years, before the Barack Obama administration withdrew US forces in 2011.

However, three years later, US troops were obliged to return, when ISIS emerged out of the Syrian civil war and then overran a third of Iraq, threatening Erbil, as well as Baghdad.

Editing by Khrush Najari