EU designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as terrorist group amid bloody crackdown
EU’s Kaja Kallas equates the group to Islamic State and al-Qaeda as death toll tops 6,300. Trump moves ‘armada’ to Mideast as Iran warns of naval strikes.
The European Union has listed Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation over Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests, the bloc’s top diplomat said in a post on social media on Thursday.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said that foreign ministers unanimously agreed on the designation. “Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working towards its own demise,” she said.
“This will put them on the same footing with al-Qaeda, Hamas, Daesh,” Kallas said earlier on Thursday, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State group. “If you act as a terrorist, you should also be treated as a terrorist.”
The 27-nation bloc on Thursday also sanctioned 15 Iranian officials, including top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard, over the violent crackdown on protesters. Activists say the crackdown has seen at least 6,373 people killed.
The measures, while largely symbolic, add to international pressures on the Islamic Republic, which faces a threat of military action from US President Donald Trump in response to the killing of peaceful demonstrators and over possible mass executions
The American military has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers into the Mideast. It remains unclear whether Trump will decide to use force.
For its part, Iran has said it could launch a pre-emptive strike or broadly target the Mideast, including American military bases in the region and Israel.