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Fresh US Sanctions Hit Iran’s Quds Force, Mahan Air

File photo: An Airbus A310 of Iranian private airline Mahan Air. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi
File photo: An Airbus A310 of Iranian private airline Mahan Air. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi
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Fresh US Sanctions Hit Iran’s Quds Force, Mahan Air

File photo: An Airbus A310 of Iranian private airline Mahan Air. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi
File photo: An Airbus A310 of Iranian private airline Mahan Air. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

The United States imposed fresh sanctions on Iran’s Mahan Air and Qeshm Air for supporting and collaborating with terror groups in Syria. It also sanctioned the Revolutionary Guards’ foreign arm, the Quds Force, and the Iran-sponsored Afghan militia Fatemiyoun fighting in Syria.

“Treasury’s targeting of Iran-backed militias and other foreign proxies is part of our ongoing pressure campaign to shut down the illicit networks the regime uses to export terrorism and unrest across the globe,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

The United States imposed sanctions on Mahan Air in 2011, saying it provided financial and other support to the Revolutionary Guards.

The Treasury said Iran-based Qeshm Fars Air was designated for being owned or controlled by Mahan Air and for providing material support to the Quds Force.

Armenia-based Flight Travel LLC acts for or on behalf of Mahan Air, which transports Iran-allied personnel and weapons to Syria, the Treasury said.

For his part, US Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker said the Treasury is aggressively targeting groups that support Mahan air.

“Iran continues to leverage Mahan Air and its commercial aviation sector to transport individuals and weapons needed to carry out this tragic campaign and to fuel sectarian conflict throughout the region,” she said in the statement.

Speaking on Iran abuses, Mandelker said: “This is a regime that preys on the most vulnerable — coercing children as young as 14-years-old to fight in Syria under the direction of the IRGC-QF (Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force), and perpetuating widespread suffering and displacement.”

“Iran continues to leverage Mahan Air and its commercial aviation sector to transport individuals and weapons needed to carry out this tragic campaign and to fuel sectarian conflict throughout the region. We are aggressively targeting those who continue to provide commercial support to Mahan Air and other designated airlines, and any who fail to heed our warnings expose themselves to severe sanctions risk.”

The US administration, according to sources, hopes that European countries remaining in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran follow suit in banning Mahan Air from their airspace in hopes of cutting the flow of large funds to help Iran's foreign proxies in Syria, Yemen, and other regional hotspots.

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Iran Says Could Abandon Nuclear Weapons But Has Conditions

A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
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Iran Says Could Abandon Nuclear Weapons But Has Conditions

A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)

Iran on Saturday hinted it would be willing to negotiate on a nuclear agreement with the upcoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump, but that it has conditions.
Last Thursday, the UN atomic watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution ordering Iran to urgently improve cooperation with the agency and requesting a “comprehensive” report aimed at pressuring Iran into fresh nuclear talks.
Ali Larijani, advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said Iran and the US are now in a new position concerning the nuclear file.
In a post on X, he said, “If the current US administration say they are only against Iran’s nuclear weapons, they must accept Iran’s conditions and provide compensation for the damages caused.”

He added, “The US should accept the necessary conditions... so that a new agreement can be reached.”
Larijani stated that Washington withdrew from the JCPOA, thus causing damage to Iran, adding that his country started increasing its production of 60% enriched uranium.
The Iran nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached to limit the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The deal began unraveling in 2018, when Washington, under Trump’s first administration, unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed a sanction regime of “maximum pressure” on Tehran.
In retaliation, Iran has rapidly ramped up its nuclear activities, including by increasing its stockpiles of enriched uranium to 60% — close to the 90% threshold required to develop a nuclear bomb.
It also began gradually rolling back some of its commitments by increasing its uranium stockpiles and enriching beyond the 3.67% purity -- enough for nuclear power stations -- permitted under the deal.
Since 2021, Tehran has significantly decreased its cooperation with the IAEA by deactivating surveillance devices to monitor the nuclear program and barring UN inspectors.
Most recently, Iran escalated its confrontations with the Agency by announcing it would launch a series of “new and advanced” centrifuges. Its move came in response to a resolution adopted by the United Nations nuclear watchdog that censures Tehran for what the agency called lack of cooperation.
Centrifuges are the machines that enrich uranium transformed into gas by rotating it at very high speed, increasing the proportion of fissile isotope material (U-235).
Shortly after the IAEA passed its resolution last Thursday, Tehran spoke about the “dual role” of IAEA’s chief, Raphael Grossi.
Chairman of the Iranian Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Azizi said, “The statements made by Grossi in Tehran do not match his actions in Vienna.”
And contrary to the statements of Azizi, who denied his country’s plans to build nuclear weapons, Tehran did not originally want to freeze its uranium stockpile enriched to 60%
According to the IAEA’s definition, around 42 kg of uranium enriched to 60% is the amount at which creating one atomic weapon is theoretically possible. The 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Spokesperson and deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said on Friday that IAEA inspectors were scheduled to come immediately after the meeting of the Board of Governors to evaluate Iran’s capacity, “with those capacities remaining for a month without any interruption in enrichment at 60% purity.”
Iran’s news agency, Tasnim, quoted Kamalvandi as saying that “the pressures resulting from the IAEA resolution are counterproductive, meaning that they increase our ability to enrich.”
He added: “Currently, not only have we not stopped enrichment, but we have orders to increase the speed, and we are gradually working on that."