Major general Qassem Soleimani, as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and five others, was killed in an attack on Baghdad airport that was sanctioned by president Donald Trump

Following the latest sanctions, Zarif cannot travel to the US or any other country outside Iran without inviting secondary sanctions against the host countries.  

The sanctions on Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp may be largely symbolic in nature but upcoming measures against foreign minister Javad Zarif could hit attempts at talks

Mike Pompeo, in a press conference, accused Iran of engineering the attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman. However, he cited unnamed intelligence reports and other vague references in support of his claim

The attacks come a month after a similar ‘attack’ on four tankers off a UAE port. The US blamed Iran for that incident without providing any evidence for the same

The new chief justice of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, has been accused of severe human rights violations. He was part of a four-member judicial committee which oversaw the execution and incarceration of opponents of the regime in the late 1980s.