The Obama administration slapped sanctions on an Iranian airline yesterday for sponsoring terrorism — its first retaliatory action after the feds exposed a bizarre $1.5 million bomb plot to the kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US on American soil.
The Treasury Department accused Tehran-based Mahan Air — Iran’s second-largest airline — of “secretly ferrying operatives, weapons and funds on its flights’’ to help Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Al Qods Force foment terror.
The executive order said the airline aids and abets Iran’s militants by covertly transporting them to Syria for training and concealing arms shipments.
Treasury officials also accused Mahan of providing services for Lebanese-based Hezbollah, another sponsor of terror.
The sanctions prohibit American citizens or firms from doing business with Mahan and freezes whatever assets it has in the US.
The White House also talked tough about additional sanctions yesterday.
“The Iranians are going to have to be held accountable,’’ fumed Vice President Joe Biden.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice briefed world leaders about the case yesterday to build a consensus for additional sanctions against the country.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “We’re responding very concretely with actions we know will have an impact.”
In the halls of Congress, politicians of all stripes said the Iranian bomb plot was a declaration of war.
Even liberals said military action has to be considered.
But Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby said the plot should be handled as a “judicial and diplomatic issue.”