By DPA
Washington : The US is to declare an Iranian elite military unit as a backer of terrorism, an unprecedented action against the armed forces of a sovereign government, The New York Times reported.
Citing Bush administration officials, it reported that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would announce the ruling against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The unit will be accused of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, while the corps’ elite Quds force will be accused of supporting terrorism.
The US already classifies the Iranian government as a state that sponsors terrorism.
The new measure adds further potential freezing of assets and other US financial measures against the Revolutionary Guard and Quds division and entities that do business with them.
In practise, the action is mostly symbolic, with US measures in place against Iran’s revolutionary regime since the 1979-81 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.
The move follows Washington’s failed efforts to get Russia and China to agree in the UN Security Council to a further round of sanctions against Iran for refusing to fully reveal its nuclear programmes to the International Atomic Energy Agency.