US sanctions Iranians over alleged assassination plots of former US officials, dissidents

By FATIMA HUSSEIN and ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has announced sanctions against some Iranian and Turkish people and firms accused of plotting to assassinate former U.S. government officials, dual U.S. and Iranian nationals, and dissidents. The sanctions announced Thursday block all access to their U.S. money and property. Several alleged assassination plots have been uncovered. An Iranian operative was charged last year in a plot to kill ex-Trump national security adviser John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful general, Qassem Soleimani. And the Treasury Department sanctioned the 15 Khordad Foundation, which issued a bounty for the killing of British-American author Salman Rushdie, who wrote “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous.