UK Imposes Sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps

On Monday, The United Kingdom imposed sanctions on senior officials of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including those it said were responsible for managing the group's financial investments.

The UK, along with the European Union and the United States, has in recent months issued several waves of sanctions against Iran, citing the widespread and often violent crackdown on protests after the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the morality police in September.

The protests represent one of the boldest challenges to the ruling clerical regime since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran accuses Western powers of fomenting the unrest, and security forces have faced deadly violence.

"Today we are taking action on the senior leaders within the IRGC who are responsible for funnelling money into the regime's brutal repression," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said.

The IRGC was established shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shi'ite clerical regime.

It has an estimated 125,000 military personnel with units from the army, navy, and air force, and the Basij religious militia leadership often used in crackdowns.

The sanctions - an asset freeze and a travel ban in the UK - were imposed on five members of the board of directors of the IRGC Cooperative Foundation and two senior IRGC commanders operating in Tehran and Alborz provinces.