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U.S. weighing terrorist label for Iran Guards

15 August 2007 16:55 (UTC +04:00)

The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iranâ€™s Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization, senior administration officials said Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
The State Department and Treasury officials are pushing for a stronger set of United Nations Security Council sanctions against members of Iranâ€™s government, including an extensive travel ban and further moves to restrict the ability of Iranâ€™s financial institutions to do business abroad. American officials have also been trying to get European and Asian banks to take additional steps against Iran.
Senior administration officials said current plans called for the declaration to be made this month, but cautioned that it could be put off, and that the effort could still be set aside if the Security Council moved more quickly to impose broad sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
There are currently 42 organizations on the State Departmentâ€™s list of foreign terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. /APA/