In the hours before the United States launched strikes against Iran-backed militants on Friday, Washington hit Tehran with more familiar weapons: sanctions and criminal charges.
The Biden administration has sanctioned officers and officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s top military force, for threatening the integrity of water operations and helping build Iranian drones. And it unsealed charges against nine people for selling oil to fund the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
The timing seemed designed to push the Revolutionary Guards and their most elite unit, the Quds Force, into a moment of extreme tension in the Middle East. Although the sanctions have been in place for some time and the charges were earlier filed under seal, the region has been in turmoil for months.
The actions are part of a concerted government effort to disrupt Iran’s efforts to use illicit oil sales to finance terrorism and push back against the country’s increasingly capable offensive cyber operations. In the 15 years since the United States launched a major cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the country has trained a generation of hackers and struck back at Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States, among others.
The effects of sanctions and charges are difficult to measure. Few Iranian officers or officials hold assets in Western banks or travel to the United States, meaning sanctions are likely to have little practical effect. While indictments and sanctions have a psychological component, proving to Iranians and their business associates around the world that Western intelligence agencies often monitor their movements and transactions, actual arrests and trials are rare.
“The reason we’re filing these cases is because we know that the money Iran gets from the illegal sale of oil is being used to finance its malign activities around the world,” Matthew G. Olsen, head of the Department’s national security division. Justice, he said on Friday. “The threats posed by Iran and the destabilizing effects of its actions are thrown into sharper relief by the attacks of October 7,” the day of the Hamas attack on Israel that killed an estimated 1,200 people.
There has been a series of actions against Iran in the past week, culminating in Friday’s strikes on Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq. The airstrikes were in retaliation for a drone attack last Sunday that killed three members of the US military at a base in Jordan.
On Monday, the Justice Department unsealed charges in Minnesota against an Iranian man accused of hiring a member of the Hells Angels to kill Iranian dissidents living in Maryland. On Wednesday, four Chinese nationals were indicted in Washington, accused of trying to smuggle and export technology used in military equipment and weapons to groups linked to the Revolutionary Guards, part of an ongoing effort to evade multiple Western bans on the sale. technology that could be used in weapons systems or surveillance.
The utility-related sanctions involved hacking so-called “logic controllers,” which are made by an Israeli company, Unitronics, and operate the pumps and valves in water systems. Access to the controllers is a way to remind the United States and other countries that their critical infrastructure is vulnerable.
“The United States, in coordination with the private sector and other affected countries, quickly restored the incidents with minimal impact,” the Treasury Department said. But it wasn’t the only attack of its kind to come from Iran: ransomware attacks came from Iranian hackers, including one against Boston Children’s Hospital three years ago and even a major Las Vegas casino.
The sanctions targeted a number of officials from the Revolutionary Guards’ “electronic warfare and cyber defense organization,” including its leader, Hamid Reza Lasgarian.
Another set of sanctions, issued by the State Department, focused on four companies that the United States said supplied materials and technology to Iran’s drone and missile programs. The drones have caused particular concern because Russia is using them in large numbers against Ukraine.
The most sweeping move came from the Justice Department, which unsealed charges against nine people from Iran, Turkey, China and Oman in connection with attempts to smuggle and sell Iranian oil in violation of US law.
The legal action came as tensions between the United States and Iran deepen. Attacks like the one that killed three Americans are financed by illegal Iranian oil sales, officials said. And tensions have risen since Oct. 7, with more than 160 attacks against U.S. military forces in Iraq, Syria and Jordan by Iranian-backed militias.
“Today’s cases are part of the department’s ongoing efforts to disrupt the flow of black market Iranian oil that funds the regime’s malign activity, threatening the United States and our interests around the world,” Mr. Olsen said.
Eric Schmidt contributed reporting from Washington.
