The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday announced fresh sanctions on Iran, targeting Bank Mellat and Mehr Eqtesad Bank.
The United States is also imposing sanctions on the Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, the Middle East's largest tractor manufacturer, and the Mobarakeh Steel Company in Esfahan, the largest steelmaker in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as on other companies linked to investment, commodities and engineering ventures, according to an announcement on the Treasury's website.
The Treasury also imposed sanctions on a multibillion-dollar financial network that supports an Iranian paramilitary force that it said recruits and trains child soldiers for the country's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The announcement comes two weeks before the Trump administration reimposes some of the United States' harshest sanctions against Iran, including its oil sector.
The Bonyad Taavon Basij network provides financial infrastructure to the Basij Resistance Force, a paramilitary force that works for the Revolutionary Guards, the Treasury said in a statement.
"This vast network provides financial infrastructure to the Basij's efforts to recruit, train, and indoctrinate child soldiers who are coerced into combat under the IRGC's direction," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
The Basij is involved in violent crackdowns and serious human rights abuses within Iran, the statement said. It recruits and trains fighters for the IRGC's black ops' arm, the Quds Force, including Iranian children as young as 12, who then deploy to Syria to support the regime of President Bashar Assad, it said.
The designations highlight that "this Iranian regime is not a normal government," a senior administration official said. "Normal governments don't have revolutionary arms that support uprisings and wreak havoc with their neighbors. They don't recruit, indoctrinate and use child soldiers."
