US sanctions four Iranians over alleged plot to kidnap journalist

The four Iranian intelligence officials are accused of targeting a journalist and human rights activist based in the US.

The United States Department of the Treasury has sanctioned four Iranian intelligence officials it alleges targeted an Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist living in the US and Iranian dissidents in other countries in an effort to silence critics of the Iranian government. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a press statement on Friday that senior Iran-based intelligence official Alireza Shahvaroghi Farahani led a group of Iranian intelligence officers in a plot to kidnap a US-based journalist and human rights activist. Though not mentioned by name in the Treasury’s statement or on its website, the journalist is presumably Masih Alinejad, a reporter who has contributed to the US government-funded Voice of America Persian language service and reports on human rights issues in Iran and whose case involving the Iranian intelligence officers has made international news.