U.S. Sanctions Iran-backed Al-Ashtar Brigades in Bahrain

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – The U.S. State and Treasury Departments announced on Monday that they were sanctioning four Bahrainis involved with an Iran-backed proxy group: the Al-Ashtar Brigades.

The sanctions marked one more step in the Biden administration’s reversal of the conciliatory approach toward Iran that it first pursued, when it took office in January 2021.

Read More: Biden: Need to Contain ‘Threat Posed by Iran’

Yet while the administration is moving increasingly against Iranian proxies, including those attacking U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, it has refrained from taking action against Iran directly.

Above all, most puzzling to outside observers is its failure to attack the Iranian spy ship that provides targeting information to the Houthis in Yemen, who are attacking international shipping—a point on which Sen. Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska) strongly pressed Gen. Erik Kurilla, Commander of CENTCOM, when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.

Al-Ashtar Brigades

Al-Ashtar Brigades is “a Bahraini Shia militant group that plans and commits terrorist attacks against the Government of Bahrain with Iran’s assistance,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) explained in its Counter Terrorism Guide.

The AAB was established in 2013, as it split from the 14 February Youth Coalition, which is the “oldest Iran-aligned Shia militia” in Bahrain, according to the ODNI.

AAB has claimed some 20 attacks in Bahrain, most targeting local police and security forces. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has provided weapons and training to the group, and “Bahraini security forces have interdicted shipments from Iran to AAB that included explosively formed penetrators,” the ODNI said.

“AAB has also allied itself with Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militants and with Lebanese Hizballah for financial and logistic support,” the ODNI added.

U.S. Designations of AAB and its Members as Terrorists

The U.S. first designated AAB as a terrorist organization in 2018, under President Donald Trump. Two individuals were also designated then: Alsayed Murtadha Alawi, AAB’s Iran-based leader, along with Ahmad Hasan Yousef, who is also based in Iran, and who is “involved in explosives training, as well as in supplying AAB members with explosives, funding, and weapons to conduct attacks,” according to the ODNI.

In announcing the new sanctions, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller explained that “in coordination with the Kingdom of Bahrain,” the U.S. “is designating three Iran-based operatives and a financial facilitator linked to Al-Ashtar Brigades.”

“Today’s action underscores the U.S. government’s commitment to target destabilizing forces and threats emanating from Iran, including those threatening our regional partners,” Miller affirmed.

The four individuals designated on Monday are all based in Iran. They include Hussein Ahmad Al-Dammami, who “has engaged in facilitating lethal aid into Bahrain in support of Al-Ashtar Brigades,” the U.S. Treasury Department explained in a statement. 

Dammami was convicted in Bahrain for “attempted murder, terrorism, possessing explosives and other crimes,” Treasury said, and he “fled to Iran following his sentencing and asset seizures.”

Ali Abdulnabi Alshofa, an AAB member “involved in suspected lethal aid facilitation in the Middle East,” was also designated, according to the Treasury Department.

The third individual designated on Monday was Hasan Ahmed Radhi Sarhan, who “has been involved in plotting terrorist operations in Bahrain.”

Finally, Isa Saleh Salman is a “financier involved in money transfers” for the AAB, facilitating such transfers into Bahrain, Treasury stated.