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Regular-article-logo Saturday, 20 April 2024

US imposes sanctions on Taliban

US sanctions have targeted Taliban members involved in suicide attacks and other lethal activities in Afghanistan, as well as Iranians who provide material and financial support, treasury

Reuters Washington Published 23.10.18, 07:59 PM
US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin.

US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin. Reuters

The US targeted Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgency on Tuesday with sanctions against eight individuals, including two linked to the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

The individuals, who also include two Pakistanis and four Afghanis, were designated global terrorists by the treasury department, an action that allows the US government to freeze property or interest in property under American jurisdiction.

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US sanctions have targeted Taliban members involved in suicide attacks and other lethal activities in Afghanistan, as well as Iranians who provide material and financial support, treasury said in a statement.

“Iran’s provision of military training, financing and weapons to the Taliban is yet another example of Tehran’s blatant regional meddling and support for terrorism,” said treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin. “The United States and our partners will not tolerate the Iranian regime exploiting Afghanistan to further their destabilising behavior.”

Mnuchin was visiting West Asia this week to discuss ways to fight terrorist financing and upcoming Iran sanctions. The Taliban sanctions also were imposed by the seven members of the Terrorist Financing Targeting Centre, a US-Gulf initiative to stem finance to militant groups.

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on Tuesday added Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Qassem Soleimani, commander of the guard’s Quds Force, to their lists of people and organisations suspected of funding terrorism, the Saudi state news agency SPA said.

The new Taliban-related designations follow a spate of violence in Afghanistan that preceded the country’s parliamentary elections last week.

On Thursday, US Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Smiley, was confirmed as one of two Americans wounded in an attack that killed the police chief of the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.

The attack, which was claimed by the Taliban, was a devastating blow to Afghanistan’s government, decapitating the security command of one of the country’s most strategically important provinces.

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