The United States slapped sanctions on six Iranian military firms on late Wednesday and charged 16 foreign companies and individuals with illegally obtaining US military goods for Tehran, including microchips that can be used to trigger roadside bombs.
The US Treasury Department said it would sanction six Iranian military firms owned or controlled by entities singled out before for their roles in Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Washington suspects Iran of building a nuclear weapon and has imposed several rounds of sanctions against Iranian companies and state entities as a means of pressuring Tehran to give up sensitive atomic work.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful power purposes and not to build a bomb. "The Iranian regime continues to act recklessly and it still remains a grave challenge to the United States and to international security," Mario Mancuso, US Commerce under-secretary for industry and security, said at a Miami news conference.
The indictment was issued on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and just short of two months before what is gearing up to be a tightly contested US presidential election. The companies earmarked for sanctions included Iran Electronics Industries, Shiraz Electronics Industries, Iran Communications Industries, Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company, Farasakht Industries, and Armament Industries Group, a Treasury Department statement said.
The companies "fall under Iran's military-industrial complex," Adam Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in Miami. "They are certainly state-owned and controlled."
In the indictment issued in Miami, eight companies and eight individuals were charged following a two-year investigation that accuses them of being part of a global network obtaining "dual-use" goods for Iran. US-origin goods diverted to Iran through the network included some subject to US controls for missile technology, national security and anti-terrorism reasons, the Commerce Department said.
The goods included thousands of integrated circuits, hundreds of Global Positioning Systems devices and some 12,000 micro-controllers that can be used in the trigger mechanisms of improvised explosive devices, officials said in Miami.
All the defendants are charged with conspiracy and violations involving the Iran Trade Embargo, the Iranian Transactions Regulations, the Export Administration Regulations and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The eight people charged included a Malaysian, a resident of Germany and six Iranians, two of whom were naturalised Britons. Officials would not say if any of them had been arrested, only that they were all overseas and the United States was seeking their extradition.