Trump administration adds new sanctions on Russia and Iran for Syrian financing scheme

Washington Free Beacon:
The Trump administration on Tuesday announced new sanctions on Iran and Russia for engaging in a financial scheme to enrich the embattled Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, according to U.S. officials.

The Trump administration's Treasury Department is cracking down on an oil shipping scheme led by Iran and Russia that has been providing "millions of barrels of oil" to the Syrian government as it continues its assault in a bloody civil war that has dragged on with no end in sight.

"The Assad regime, in turn, facilitates the movement of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) for onward transfer to Hamas and Hezbollah," both of which have been propped up and armed by the Iranian regime since the landmark nuclear deal was put into force.

The new actions come as the Trump administration undertakes an effort to crack down on Iran's malign activity across the region, including in Syria and Yemen, where Iranian militants have wreaked havoc on civilian populations. Tuesday's sanctions follow the reinstatement of economic penalties lifted by the Obama administration as part of the nuclear deal and in tandem with upcoming actions to declare Iran in breach of chemical weapons bans, as the Washington Free Beacon first reported on Friday.

"Today we are acting against a complex scheme Iran and Russia have used to bolster the Assad regime and generate funds for Iranian malign activity," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement announcing the new sanctions. "Central Bank of Iran officials continue to exploit the international financial system, and in this case even used a company whose name suggests a trade in humanitarian goods as a tool to facilitate financial transfers supporting this oil scheme."

"We are issuing an Advisory today identifying the grave risks to the maritime community if they participate in shipping oil to the Government of Syria," Mnuchin said. "The United States is committed to imposing a financial toll on Iran, Russia, and others for their efforts to solidify Assad's authoritarian rule, as well as disrupt the Iranian regime's funding of terrorist organizations."
...
This looks like a scheme to help Iran continue to support its terrorist proxies in the Middle East.  It also looks like an attempt to avoid US sanctions on oil shipments.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more