US military, intelligence bodies harbor terrorists in region: Iranian lawmakers

Iranian lawmakers have passed a single-urgency bill, which designates US military forces and intelligence services as supporters of terrorist groups in the Middle East.

The bill, whose single urgency was passed on the Parliament floor on Tuesday, read, “In view of the overt support provided to terrorist groups by the US government and the country’s military and intelligence forces and repeated confessions by American officials to having created terrorist groups and offered them all-out support, from the standpoint of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the entirety of the United States’ military and intelligence forces are considered as supporters of terrorist groups in the region.”

Therefore, the bill added, the following persons and entities would be subject to penalties outlined in the legislation:

1. US military and intelligence organizations and senior US commanders and officials supporting terrorist groups;

2. American persons playing an effective part in the activities of the above-mentioned US military and intelligence forces;

3. American persons with an effective role in organizing, financing or conducting acts of terror against the interests of the Iranian government or nationals;

4.  American persons directly or indirectly supporting the terrorist anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) or other extremist and terrorist groups including Daesh and al-Nusra Front, aka Jabhat Fateh al-Sham;

5.  American persons supporting the Israeli regime’s state terrorism against the Palestinian and Lebanese people.

The bill has foreseen various penalties for persons and entities to which it applies, including a ban on the issuing of visas for them to enter Iran, seizure of all their assets in the Islamic Republic and freezing of their accounts with Iranian banks.

It obliges the Iranian administration to allocate over 250 million dollars to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic in order to expand the country’s missile program, increase the Islamic Republic’s deterrent power, for counter-terrorism operations, and to maintain regional stability and support the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

It also urges the Iranian administration to give over 250 million dollars to the IRGC's Qods Force to help it fight terrorism in the region.

The bill came on the same day that the administration of US President Donald Trump said it was imposing new economic sanctions against Iran over the Islamic Republic’s missile program.

The US departments of treasury and state said Tuesday that they were targeting 18 Iranian individuals, groups and networks.

Read more:

• US adding new sanctions against Iran over missile program

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