Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Wednesday that US forces had seized a tanker for shipping oil from Venezuela and Iran, publishing footage of troops rappelling onto the vessel by helicopter.
"Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran," Bondi posted on X.
"For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations, she added.
The vessel, is called Skipper but had previously gone by the name Adisa, British maritime risk management group Vanguard reported.
"This seizure, completed off the coast of Venezuela, was conducted safely and securely—and our investigation alongside the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the transport of sanctioned oil continues," Bondi said.
A 2022 US Treasury sanctions notice said a Gulf-based businessman, Viktor Artemov along with other individuals were involved in a network "to illegally transport Iranian oil abroad and procure funds on behalf of Hizballah and the IRGC-QF," referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and its external branch, the Quds Force.
The Adisa was listed among the vessels controlled by Artemov under a front company in which the Treasury said he had a 50% stake, Petro Naviero.
"Artemov used his companies to buy and sell oil tankers that were then used to transport blended Iranian oil on behalf of the oil smuggling network," the Treasury said.
The United States has ramped up a military deployment in the Caribbean as part of a pressure campaign on Venezuela and its leader Nicolas Maduro. US attacks on alleged drug boats there and in the Pacific have killed at least 87 people, in attacks which Democratic opponents and rights groups say violate the laws of war.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week cast Venezuela as a regional platform for Iranian influence, describing Maduro’s government as a narcotics transit hub that hosts Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Maduro has rejected US accusations that he runs a narco-terrorist cartel and dismisses the largest American military buildup in the region in decades as an attempt to impose Washington's will on his oil-rich country.
The over 3,000-page $900 billion plus National Defense Authorization Act outlines US military priorities around the globe. A compromise version of the proposed legislation emerged on Sunday.
It contains provisions to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) against Iraq passed by Congress to confront US foe Saddam Hussein, in a win for the legislative branch's powers to declare war which remain a flashpoint.
According to the text, no more than half of the funds allocated for Iraq's military can be delivered until the Secretary of Defense submits to Congress a verification that Baghdad has implemented "credible steps" to rein in Tehran-backed militias.
These include steps "to reduce the operational capacity of Iran-aligned militia groups not integrated into the Iraqi Security Forces," moves to strengthen the authority of the Iraqi Prime Minister as commander in chief of the security forces.
It further requires Iraq to "investigate and hold accountable members of militias or members of security forces operating outside the formal chain of command who engage in attacks on United States or Iraqi personnel or otherwise act in an illegal or destabilizing manner."
The NDAA allows for a waiver of 180 days if the Secretary of Defense invokes national security reasons.
Recent elections
Emerging from years of civil war which followed a US invasion in 2003, Baghdad is caught between the competing influence of Tehran and Washington.
Tehran-aligned groups such as the Popular Mobilization Forces and Kata’ib Hezbollah fielded candidates in parliamentary polls last month, rebranding themselves as civilian organizations even as their armed presence persists.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who has plied a middle course between the two foreign rivals vying over the future of the war-battered Arab nation, looks set to stay in office after months of bargaining wraps up.
He has taken few steps to defang the armed groups even as overall security nationwide has improved, earning criticism from hawks in Washington.
'Make Iraq Great Again'
"It does not matter who wins elections or forms a government, as the entire country is deeply infiltrated by Iran," Republican Congressman Joe Wilson said on Tuesday.
"Congress will not continue to issue blank checks forever," he added in the post on X. Baghdad, he said, "should take sovereign decisions on behalf of their own people rather than obeying the dictates of Iran and its puppet militias and kleptocrats."
The administration of US President Donald Trump has stepped up sanctions on Iraqi people and entities it accuses of helping enrich Tehran, and his special envoy to Baghdad Mark Savaya has vowed to "Make Iraq Great Again."
Hamstrung by US and international sanctions, Iran shares long historical and religious ties with parts of Iraq and views it as a valuable conduit for conducting international business.
Tehran armed and funded the militias which helped the country defeat Islamic State militants but which lingered after their defeat and continue to exert a strong influence over the security forces and government.
