Chaos-hit US sanctions three Iranian entities over election meddling claims

The US administration has imposed sanctions on three Iranian organizations over accusations of running a disinformation campaign targeting the upcoming US presidential election.

According to Press TV, the US Treasury Department added on Thursday the Bayan Rasaneh Gostar Institute, the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union and International Union of Virtual Media to its sanctions list over what it claimed "brazen attempts" to interfere with the US election and US voters.

The Treasury claimed that the three organizations worked to "sow discord among the voting populace by spreading disinformation online and executing malign influence operations aimed at misleading US voters" ahead of the US presidential election on November 3.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the IRGC’s Qods Force were also targeted on Thursday by a new round of sanctions on behalf of the US Treasury, which accused them of controlling the three organizations and spreading disinformation in the run-up to the US presidential election.

The sanctions, which forbid Americans and US entities from doing business with the Iranian groups, would have little impact as the IRGC and IRGC-Qods Force have already been subject to such restrictive measures.

In a separate development on Thursday, the US Treasury Department also imposed sanctions against Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi, alleging that the envoy was a "close adviser" to Iran's top anti-terror Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the US in Iraq in January.

The Treasury claimed that Masjedi had used his role as Tehran's ambassador to "obfuscate financial transfers" benefiting the IRGC.

The Treasury’s latest sanctions come as Iran has already dismissed as “absurd” US claims of an Iranian attempt to influence American voters.

Alireza Miryousefi, the Spokesman for Iran's United Nations mission, rejected as “malign and dangerous” claims by US national security officials that the Islamic Republic was attempting to influence American voters.

Miryousefi said the US is desperately trying to question the outcome of its own elections and underlined that Tehran, unlike Washington, does not interfere in other countries’ elections.

ME