US sanctions Iran supreme leader’s aides

WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday slapped sanctions on nine aides to Iran´s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the 40th anniversary of revolutionary zealots seizing the US embassy in Tehran. The United States said it was also offering a $20 million reward for information to find Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent and CIA contractor who went missing in Iran in 2007 in mysterious circumstances.

The Treasury Department said it was imposing sanctions on nine members of Khamenei´s inner circle, accusing them of “repression” at home and exporting “terrorism” overseas. “This action further constricts the supreme leader´s ability to execute his agenda of terror and oppression,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. The targeted individuals include a number of prominent Iranians, among them judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior foreign policy adviser to Khamenei.

“Forty years later, the revolutionary regime in Tehran has proven, time and again, that its first acts after gaining power were a clear indication of its evil character,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.