The 51 Americans include Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Central Command chief Kenneth McKenzie. Iran has the temerity to impose sanctions against Pentagon officials just ahead of another round of nuke “negotiations” with the Biden Administration. Unbelievable. This is what happens when you appease a murderous terror regime. What will it take for the Biden Administration to walk away from these sham negotiations with Iran?
It’s quite something for an American administration to respond to a state sponsor of terrorism’s threats against American citizens with zero condemnation and/or vow of consequences for such action, but instead with offers of cash to fund the terrorism.
— Richard Goldberg (@rich_goldberg) January 9, 2022
Iran imposes sanctions on Americans over 2020 killing of Soleimani
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the 51 Americans had been targeted for what it called “terrorism” and human rights violations.
By Jerusalem Post, January 8, 2022
Iran on Saturday imposed sanctions on dozens more Americans, many of them from the US military, over the 2020 killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike.The move came as talks continued in Vienna Saturday between Tehran and five world powers — Russia, China, France, Germany and Great Britain — on the lifting of crippling US sanctions imposed by the former Trump Administration.The meeting of the working group to remove sanctions is part of the overall eighth round of Vienna talks to revive the 2015 Iran deal that included Tehran the five world powers and the United States, which left the deal in 2018 and now seeks to return to it.Vienna talks involving the US, have been held indirectly, with Washington focused on bringing Tehran back into nuclear compliance with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.In a move that spoke to continued Washington-Tehran tensions, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said 51 Americans had been targeted for what it called “terrorism” and human rights violations. The step lets Iranian authorities seize any assets they hold in Iran, but the apparent absence of such assets means it will likely be symbolic.The ministry said in a statement carried by local media that the 51 had been targeted for “their role in the terrorist crime by the United States against the martyred General Qassem Soleimani and his companions and the promotion of terrorism and violations of fundamental human rights”.Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, the overseas arm of the elite Revolutionary Guards, was killed in Iraq in a drone strike on Jan. 3, 2020, ordered by then-President Donald Trump.Those added to Iran’s sanctions list included US General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
In a similar move announced a year ago, Iran imposed sanctions on Trump and several senior US officials over what it called “terrorist and anti-human rights” acts.Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, speaking on the second anniversary of Soleimani’s assassination, said this week Trump must face trial for the killing or Tehran would take revenge.Iran charged that Israel’s role in the Soleimani killing showed that it was a force of global instability.“The Zionist regime’s admission that it was involved in the assassination of General #Soleimani showed that hostility to this champion of fighting against terrorism in the region, was the link connecting all forces of evil in the world.”