US Congressman Calls For EU, NATO Sanctions On Iranian Airlines

The US Treasury on Friday named six people that have been sanctioned because of their affiliation with Kata’ib Hezbollah., which itself has been added to the US terror list. Among those targeted is a member of the IRGC Quds Force, who the administration says facilitates travel and training of Kata’ib Hezbollah fighters in Iran.

"Today’s action sends a message to Kata’ib Hizballah and all other Iran-backed groups that the United States will use all available measures to hold to account any opportunistic actors who seek to exploit the situation in Gaza for their own ends," a Treasury official said.

Iran proxies have been attacking US forces ever since Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas terror attack.

On Friday, a Pentagon official told Iran International that multiple one-way drones had been launched against US positions in Syria and Iraq, bringing the number of such attacks to 62 in 31 days.

It’s not clear if the newly introduced sanctions can have a meaningful impact on the dynamics on the ground. The regime in Iran and its proxies have been dealing with various forms of sanctions for a long time.

The sanctions will freeze assets of the sanctioned individuals and entities in the US and generally bar Americans from dealing with them. But this will hardly deter the militia if they have little or no material relation or connection with the US.

The Biden administration seems to be reluctant to widen or deepen the conflict. Despite all the tough talk from Biden and his team, the American military has only launched a few airstrikes on IRGC-affiliated positions in Syria and Iraq to deter their daily attacks.

Biden critics say his leniency in dealing with Iran is at least partly to blame for the current situation by emboldening Tehran to advance its regional agenda with relative impunity.

"President Biden’s failure to respond to attacks by Iran and its proxies has put American troops in danger, said Senator Tom Cotton Tuesday. “We have to make Iran once again fear us before more Americans die.”

In the past few weeks, the US has deployed warships and air defense systems to the region, amid concerns that Israel’s onslaught of Gaza could trigger other groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon to officially enter the scene, putting the whole region ablaze and endangering American troops stationed across the Middle East.

According to Reuters, the US military is taking new measures “to protect its Middle East forces during the ramp-up in attacks by suspected Iran-backed groups” and is leaving open “the possibility of evacuating military families if needed.”

The United States has 900 troops in Syria, and 2,500 more in neighboring Iraq.

On Thursday, Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal introduced legislation that urges Biden to attack Iran in case an American soldier was killed in Syria or Iraq.

“If an American is killed… then the target should be in Iran,” said Senator Graham in the press briefing for the initiative. “They need to pay a price they haven’t paid yet. That price should be the IRGC infrastructure… and the oil refineries.”

Many US lawmakers, including some within Biden’s Democratic Party, have become more critical of the administration due to what they see as letting the Iranian regime off the hook and refilling its coffers.

“Pres. Biden and his team decided early on that, if they were just nice to Iran, Iran would be nicer to us. As a result of that, Iran has been able to earn billions more from oil and got $4.5B in money via the IMF,” said Senator John Kennedy in an interview Friday.

The administration’s decision earlier this week to grant another sanction waiver to enable Iraq to pay Iran for electricity has enraged many lawmakers.

“Make no mistake,” Rep. John James wrote in a post on X, “the money we're allowing Iran to have will go toward killing Americans and Jews, and Biden is allowing it to happen with his ignorance, naivety, and complete lack of understanding of how global politics works. We must hold them accountable.”

The administration says that the Iranian government will not receive in hard currency in cash and can only purchase non-sanctionable goods with the funds that will be kept in Oman. However, critics say that if Tehran can import food and medicine with the funds, it can allocate it own dollars and euros from oil exports to destructive activities.

Many in the Congress are dismayed by a new US sanction waiver that would see Iran gaining access to another $10 billion frozen in Iraq, while openly backing Hamas and celebrating its attack on Israel last month.

“We are in a day and age where we need to be aggressive with Iran,” Senator Joni Ernst told Iran International’s Arash Alaei. “If you look at what is going on in the Middle East right now, we see Iran sponsoring terrorism through Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

Senator Ernst is co-sponsoring a bill with Senator Richard Blumenthal that aims to enforce Iran’s oil sanctions –abandoned by the Biden administration in all but name.

The bipartisan bill includes a provision for a $150 million sanctions enforcement fund that would allow the Department of Homeland Security Investigations office to focus on enforcing Iranian oil sanctions.

“We need to start interdicting Iranian oil and use the funds for victims of state-sponsored terrorism”, Senator Ernst told Iran International.

Another initiative, introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal urges President Biden to attack Iran in case an American soldier was killed in Syria or Iraq.

“If an American is killed… then the target should be in Iran,” said Senator Graham at the press briefing introducing the initiative. “We’ve had four strikes, all inside Syria… Reagan hit Iran. Trump hit Iran… they need to pay a price they haven’t paid yet.”

And he explained the “price” in the clearest terms.

“That price should be the IRGC infrastructure… and the oil refineries should be knocked out if they continue their efforts to expand this war [between Israel and Hamas].”

Senators Graham and Blumenthal say that their draft is such that it would require no further Congressional authorization and President Joe Biden can take action at will.

“And the Iranians will get it,” Senator Blumenthal said at the same briefing. “And hopefully they’ll get it today, even before it’s passed, that we stand behind the President. We don’t want war. They shouldn’t want war.”

Iran and the US have been on a colliding course for a few weeks now, but so far have avoided direct conflict. The Islamic Republic utilizes its proxies in Iraq and Syria, as well as Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon to attack US and Israeli targets. The United States, on the other hand, has retaliated by striking at IRGC affiliated facilities in Syria.

Senator Graham called for a direct and clear warning to be issued to Iran.

“So if you continue [the attacks], this is what’s coming your way,” he said, “we’re going to hit you hard in every sphere of influence, economic and military. We are on the edge right now. The Iranians can make some decision one way or the other. Choose wisely.”

Despite their persistence on shifting the Biden administration's approach towards Iran, the US lawmakers are not too optimistic about their chances.

Senator Ernst told Iran International that she felt Biden was not likely to enforce the bill even if it reached the final stage and was signed into law.

“I don't count much on the Biden administration,” she said, “I'm hopeful that in the next few years, we have a different leader that will be willing to enforce the sanctions.”

Many believe that the Biden administration has chosen to look the other way and allow Iran to export its oil in spite of the sanctions –hoping that in return, it would get the regime to agree to some kind of nuclear deal.

On Wednesday, a White House Energy Adviser Amos Hochstein said that the US will toughen up on Iran oil sanctions to curb the Islamic Republic’s revenues.

“We are going to enforce the sanctions,” he said, “those numbers will come down.”

Iran reportedly exported 1.4 million barrels of oil per day last month. This is almost twice as much as it averaged during Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, according to United Against Nuclear Iran.

The interior ministry said the Khamenei-controlled Islamic Center of Hamburg (IZH) activities are “aimed at spreading the revolutionary concept of the Supreme (Iranian) leaders,” and that the center allegedly undermines Germany’s “constitutional order.”

The German interior minister, Nancy Faeser, from the Social Democratic Party said, “We have the Islamist scene in our sights. Especially now, at a time when many Jews feel particularly threatened, we generally do not tolerate Islamist propaganda or antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement.”

The IZH has been a hotbed of pro-Hezbollah activism and support for Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of IRGC's Quds Force. In January 2020, after the US killed Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq, a group of 600 pro-Iran regime Islamists attended a memorial service at the Hamburg center to mourn his death. The Islamists praised him as a “heroic martyr.”

Germany’ interior ministry outlawed all Hezbollah activities in 2020. In addition to the raid on the IZH in the city-state of Hamburg, the German authorities searched 54 properties across six other German states— Baden-Wuerttemberg,Bavaria, Berlin,Hesse, North-Rhine Westphalia and Lower Saxony. There were no arrests made during the raids. Faeser said with an apparent reference to the troika Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s regime (via its proxies) carrying out terror attacks against Israel and US military forces that "Now especially is the time to be on high alert and for a tough approach. This is why we are following every reasonable suspicion seriously."

German-Iranians and dissidents expressed support for the crackdown on the IZH.Dr. Kazem Moussavi , a spokesman for the Green Party of Iran in exile, told Iran International that “The police searches of the IZH and its associated religious institutes are now to be welcomed. But this is inadequate. After banning Hamas and Samidoun, interior minister Faeser should now finally immediately ban the IZH, whose regime is indisputably the decisive mastermind and supporter of the Hamas pogrom against Israel on October 7, 2023.”

In early 2023, the German Federal Administrative Court ruled that the IZH (and its affiliated Blue Mosque are an "extremist Islamic organization."

Moussavi, who has spent years campaigning to bring about the closure of the IZH, added, “The IZH is not a place of prayer for secularist and democratic Muslims but a refuge for jihadist regime supporters, secret service personnel and sympathizers of Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Sheina Vojoudi, a Germany-based associate fellow for the Gold Institute for International Strategy told Iran International that “For years Iranian dissidents try to convince Germany to close the Islamic Centre funded by the Islamic Republic in Hamburg, which according to German courts, is an ‘extremist Islamic organization’.”

She added “All the Islamic centers funded by the Islamic Republic with Iranian wealth must be closed. The Islamic Republic’s intention is to spread antisemitism, observe and threaten Iranians everywhere and build its network all over the world to export its revolution.”

In October 2020, roughly 150 demonstrators urged the city of Hamburg to close the IZH.

According to Vojoudi, " it’s an absolute fact that Hamas is funded and trained by the Islamic Republic and the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel is a warning message to the West considering that Iran’s regime also built its Islamic centers in the heart of Europe. The western city partnerships with the Islamic Republic in Iran legitimize its terror actions and it’s time to reconsider the continuation of the German city partnerships like Freiburg-Esfahan partnership before it’s too late.”

Iranian dissidents have urged Martin Horn, the mayor of Freiburg in southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, to end its twin city partnership with the Iranian regime in Esfahan. Horn has been vehemently opposed to pulling the plug on the partnership. Iran International sent press queries to Horn after reporting in August that Iranians urged the city of Frankfurt to close a center affiliated with the Islamic Republic.

The capital of Stuttgart in Baden-Wuerttemberg continues to post information about a reportedly pro-Hamas group on its municipal website. Iran International press queries to mayor Frank Nopper of Stuttgart were not immediately returned.

Nopper has refused to delete the notice. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told Iran International "What more needs to be said that one month after the most barbaric mass murder, rape kidnapping and hostage taking of Jews since the Holocaust, Mayor Nopper and his associates allow pro-Hamas postings on the city’s website while 30 Jewish children are held as hostages, It is despicable antisemitism and proves some in Germany have not and will never learn the basic lessons and historic responsibilities from the Nazi Holocaust for Germans."

Iran International sent press queries to Oliver Vrankovic, the chairman of the German-Israel Friendship Association in Stuttgart, whose organization claims to be against Iran’s regime and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. Vrankovic and his foreign ministry funded NGO have refused to publicly urge Nopper to expunge the pro-Hamas information on the taxpayer funded municipal website.

Liam Fox hosted a session on the security threats posed by the group at Parliament this week just weeks after Ken McCallum, the Director-General of MI5, referred to "hostile activity by the Islamic Republic in the UK," emphasizing that countering threats from Tehran remains a top priority. "Iran has been a rising source of concern and a rising source of task for MI5 over the last 18 months or so in particular," he said last month.

The British newspaper, The Times, also reported that Iranian regime agents were stirring up unrest in the UK through pro-Gaza protests in the wake of the Iran-backed proxy Hamas' invasion of Israel on October 7.

The session on Tuesday was organized by the International Organization to Preserve Human Rights (IOPHR) and featured lawmakers such as former Leader of the Conservative Party Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against A Nuclear Iran, and Vahid Beheshti, British-Iranian journalist and anti-regime activist were among the panelists.

For months, Beheshti held a hunger strike for 73 days outside the UK Foreign Office in protest of the atrocities committed by the regime in the wake of the Women, Life, Freedom movement protests. Following the latest calls for designation, he told Iran International he is optimistic after earlier this week, more than 60 lawmakers urged the British Prime Minister to ban the IRGC, designated by the US in 2019.

The Third Committee of the 78th General Assembly approved a resolution entitled “Situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran” by a vote of 80 in favor to 29 against.

Another 65 countries, including many with a track record of human rights abuses such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and South Africa, abstained. A bevy of dictatorships voted against, including Iranian ally Russia, Belarus, Syria and North Korea.

The resolution, whose draft was introduced by Canada, condemned the misogynistic policies and practices of the Iranian regime, calling on Tehran to put an end to its discrimination against women.

The regime continues to introduce yet stricter legislation to crack down on hijab and ‘chastity’ laws as more women across Iran reject the mandatory headscarf and curbs on their behavior. Surveillance has been stepped up and like Mahsa Amini, the symbol of the Women, Life, Freedom uprising which began after her death in morality police custody last year, a 16-year-old girl, Armita Geravand, also died in their hands in recent weeks.

Citing “the Iranian authorities’ flagrant disregard for human rights, life and dignity”, the resolution condemned “the intensified, targeted repression of women and girls by Iran, both online and offline”. Women are arbitrarily arrested on the street for hijab refusal and refused entry to public spaces including universities, hospitals and public spaces.

Iran’s #MeToo movement has also chronicled systemic sexual abuse in the country’s legal system, women under constant threat of sexual violence on the streets and in prison.

The resolution cited “mass arrests and arbitrary detention, disproportionate use of force, including force leading to the death of peaceful protesters, and imposition and carrying out of the death penalty against those connected to the protests.”.

More than 500 demonstrators were killed by security forces in the protests following Mahsa's death, after they were given free rein by the regime’s top officials in an attempt to quell the uprising.

The resolution also called on Iran to end its harassment and persecution of political opponents and human rights defenders, especially those belonging to minority groups, a phenomenon which has worsened since the uprising.

In October, rights group Amnesty International reported a new wave of crackdowns on Baluchi protesters in Iran.

The people of Sistan-Baluchestan have been holding weekly protests after security forces opened fire at peaceful protesters, killing nearly 100 on September 30, 2022, a day known as the Bloody Friday of Zahedan. Zahedan is one of the few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shiite Iran.

“The authorities are ramping up their brutality to stop Baluchi protesters from gathering each week in Zahedan,” warned Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

The resolution of the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which addresses social, humanitarian and cultural issues, also urged Tehran to cooperate with international human rights mechanisms, especially with the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman.

Earlier this month, Rehman warned that the Israel-Hamas war bolsters repression inside Iran by deflecting attention from internal criticism of the regime to regional issues as the conflict instigated by Iran’s biggest Palestinian proxy against Israel, rages on.

In a post on X, Abram Paley, the US State Department's deputy special envoy for Iran, hailed the passing of the resolution. “We stand with the people of Iran as they continue their fight against oppression and violence and for a free and democratic future,” he said.

The resolution comes a week after United Nations reiterated concerns regarding the human rights situation in Iran, urging the release of detained protestors and an immediate end to executions which have also escalated since the uprising began in September last year.

The committee noted “the alarming increase of the use of the death penalty”. According to a UN report, at least 419 people were reportedly executed, including 409 men and 10 women, between January 1, 2023, and July 31, 2023, marking a 30 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

The committee also approved six resolutions including on the human rights situations in Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Myanmar and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Iran’s representative at the session, Zahra Ershadi, rejected the resolution branding it “biased and politically motivated”. Falling back on regime rhetoric to attack the West, she blamed it on “Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the United States, and the occupying and apartheid Israeli regime — the classic cast of characters and the usual suspects.”