Iran sanctions: US announces new penalties over Iranian regime's use of ballistic missiles

New economic penalties will ‘aggressively target Iran's malign activity’, Treasury Department says

A long-range Qadr ballistic missile is launched in the Alborz mountain range in northern Iran (Getty)

The Trump administration has announced new sanctions against Iran over the country’s ballistic missile programme.

The economic penalties target at least 16 individuals and entities the Treasury Department said have supported “illicit Iranian actors or transnational criminal activity”.

The action comes one day after the Trump administration warned Iran was not following “the spirit” of its nuclear weapons agreement. Donald Trump has been a long time critic of the 2015 deal.

The new sanctions do not relate to the terms of the nuclear deal, which Washington yesterday confirmed Iran is “technically” complying with, but the Treasury Department said the new sanctions will still target the “proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery and supporters of such activity”.

It targets groups and individuals which the US says has supported Iran’s military, or Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In a statement issued on Tuesday the department said the sanctions came after three networks reportedly supported Iran’s military procurement “through the development of unmanned aerial vehicles and military equipment”, as well as the production and maintenance of “fast attack boats”.

The statement also said the sanctions would target “networks and businessmen” who carried out “the theft of US and western software programmes” which they say were sold to the Government of Iran.

The US will freeze any assets the targets of the sanctions may have in the US, and will prevent US citizens from doing any business with them.

Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said the penalties “will continue to aggressively target Iran's malign activity, including their ongoing state support of terrorism, ballistic missile program, and human rights abuses.”

He added: “These sanctions target procurement of advanced military hardware, such as fast attack boats and unmanned aerial vehicles, and send a strong signal that the United States cannot and will not tolerate Iran’s provocative and destabilising behaviour. We will continue to target the IRGC and pressure Iran to cease its ballistic missile program and malign activities in the region.”