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The United States unveiled sanctions connected Friday (January 23, 2026) targeting Iran's "shadow fleet" said to beryllium supporting the country's lipid exports, arsenic Washington steps up unit implicit the government's crackdown connected protesters.
The Treasury Department took purpose astatine 9 vessels and their respective owners oregon absorption firms, which U.S. officials said "collectively transported hundreds of millions of dollars' worthy of Iranian lipid and petroleum products to overseas markets."
The section charged that gross from these products is being diverted to money "regional violent proxies, weapons programs, and information services."
The determination comes arsenic a U.S.-based rights radical said that it had confirmed the deaths of much than 5,000 radical during protests that swept Iran, adding that astir of them were demonstrators targeted by information forces.
A fortnight of protests starting successful precocious December shook Iran's clerical enactment nether ultimate person Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But the question has petered retired successful the look of a crackdown that activists accidental killed thousands, accompanied by an unprecedented net blackout.
NGOs tracking the effects of the crackdown person said their enactment has been hampered by a present two-week net shutdown, informing that confirmed figures are apt to beryllium acold beneath the existent toll.
The U.S. Treasury's targets unveiled connected Friday included firms based successful the United Arab Emirates, India, and Oman.
"Today's sanctions people a captious constituent of however Iran generates the funds utilized to repress its ain people," U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said successful a statement.
"Treasury volition proceed to way the tens of millions of dollars that the authorities has stolen and is desperately attempting to ligament to banks extracurricular of Iran," helium added.
In a abstracted statement, the U.S. State Department added that "this latest enactment volition further restrict Iran's quality to export petroleum and petroleum products done obscure and fraudulent mechanisms."
This is besides aimed astatine further constraining "its quality to bankroll the repression of Iranians and planetary malign behaviour," State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said.
