By JAY SOLOMON
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Treasury blacklisted 21 state-owned Iranian companies as part of a growing and coordinated international effort to undercut Tehran’s ability to use units in Europe and Asia to facilitate financial transactions and weapons development.
The Obama administration’s point man in its financial war on Iran, Stuart Levey, also announced Tuesday U.S. sanctions against leaders in Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well measures targeting Iranian foundations accused of supporting militant groups in Lebanon, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.
“As its isolation from the international financial and commercial systems increases, the government of Iran will continue efforts to evade sanctions, including using government-owned entities around the world,” said Mr. Levey, the Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. “Today’s identifications will mitigate the risk that such entities pose.”
The Treasury’s moves mark the latest in an escalating response from the U.S., its overseas allies, and the United Nations to Iran’s continued pursuit of nuclear technologies. Tehran says it is seeking to develop civilian nuclear power, but the U.S. alleges Iran is covertly developing atomic weapons.
In June, the U.N. Security Council passed its fourth round of economic sanctions against Tehran aimed at curtailing its nuclear work. The U.S. Congress followed by passing extensive legislation targeting Iranian banks and energy companies. And the European Union last month banned any new investment in Tehran’s oil and gas sector and significantly limited European companies’ ability to do business with Iranian financial, insurance and transportation firms.
Mr. Levey said Tuesday that Iran has increasingly utilized foreign front companies to try to conduct financial transactions and facilitate Iran’s development of military technologies as the sanctions have mounted.
Included on the new U.S. blacklist are nine Iranian companies based in Germany. Mr. Levey said the Treasury notified Germany and all other countries affected by the sanctions ahead of the announcement. A spokeswoman for the German Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
The list also includes two companies in Belarus and one each in Japan and Italy. Some of these firms are owned by Iranian entities previously sanctioned by the Treasury, said Mr. Levey.
U.S. individuals and companies are banned from conducting any business with the companies listed on the Treasury’s Iranian Transactions Regulations list, which has now grown to 58. But Mr. Levey said the bigger impact is that foreign governments and firms will also be pressured to cease business with these Iranian companies for fear of running afoul of growing U.S. and U.N. sanctions.
“What we have found is that … the financial institutions will say they do not wish to do business with anyone on this list,” said Mr. Levey, who noted that thousands of firms are being notified of the new Treasury actions. “This allows us to take action and create a multilateral coalition to enforce it.”
The Treasury on Tuesday also sanctioned four leaders of the Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force, which the U.S. believes oversees Tehran’s financial support for militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Among those targeted were Hushang Allahdad, whom the Treasury says is the Qods Force’s chief financial officer, and Gen. Hossein Musavi, believed to head the Qods Force’s Ansar Corps, which is active in Afghanistan. The sanctions freeze any assets they might have in the U.S. and bans them from conducting U.S. dollar transactions. U.S. companies are also prevented from doing business with them.
The U.S. and its allies have made the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a principal target of its growing sanctions campaign. The EU last month banned all business dealings with the corps and the U.N. blacklisted a number of IRGC businesses.
Mr. Levey said the IRGC is increasingly dominating Iran’s business sector and pushing out many smaller Iranian merchants and companies. The Iranian people are becoming more and more victimized” by the IRGC, Mr. Levey said.
