The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions on Thursday against individuals and businesses supporting or linked to the Iranian-backed terrorist groups Hezbollah and Kata’ib Hezbollah.
“Operation Economic Outcast is targeting those who continue to stand with the failing Iranian regime,” Scott Bessent, the U.S. treasury secretary, stated. “Whether they finance terror, launder money or help Iran evade sanctions, we will find them, cut them off from the U.S. financial system and dismantle the networks keeping the regime afloat.”
Treasury sanctioned four members of Kata’ib Hezbollah, including senior commander Ali Hasan Farhan Al-Lami. The other three are Hussein Ahmed Hussein Al-Dhuhaibawi, Mohamed Ameen Fadhil Ali Al-Shaikhli and Karrar Mohammed Qasim Al-Hraishawi.
The department also sanctioned three people and two businesses tied to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, a militia umbrella organization heavily influenced by Iran. Kata’ib Hezbollah is the PMF’s most influential faction, according to Treasury, and is a major beneficiary of the more than $2.6 billion in annual funding that the Iraqi government allocates to the force.
The sanctions come months after the U.S. Department of Justice announced the May 16 arrest of a senior Kata’ib Hezbollah commander accused of attempting to arrange the bombing of a New York synagogue and additional Jewish institutions in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Ariz. Treasury also said Kata’ib Hezbollah and other Iranian-aligned Iraqi militias have carried out hundreds of attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the region since February.
The department separately sanctioned five people and two businesses for supporting Hezbollah through a cash-smuggling network that Treasury said transferred hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force to the Lebanese terror group between May and September 2025. Hezbollah uses the funds to purchase weapons, manufacture equipment and pay its members, according to Treasury.
“The United States is taking action through Operation Economic Outcast to target Kata’ib Hezbollah, Hezbollah and the financial networks fueling Iran’s regional and global destabilization,” Tommy Pigott, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, stated. “We stand with Iraq and Lebanon against Tehran’s terrorist proxies.”
