The Office of Foreign Assets Control on April 23 sanctioned two leaders of al-Qa’ida-aligned terrorist group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) for the hostage-taking of U.S. persons in West Africa. The designations target Sidan ag Hitta of Mali and Jafar Dicko of Burkina Faso. Concurrently, the State Department sanctioned five JNIM leaders, as well as two al-Murabitoun leaders, for hostage taking of U.S. nationals.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on April 23 sanctioned two companies and four people for their roles in malicious cyber activity against more than a dozen U.S. companies and government entities on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC).
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The State Department is proposing to increase fees for registration with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, it said in a notice released April 23. The agency also is proposing changes to the DDTC fee structure, as well as a reorganization of its International Traffic in Arms Regulations on fees and registration.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on April 19 partially dismissed a lawsuit from sanctioned individuals Mir Rahman Rahmani and Hafi Ajmal Rahmani and over two dozen of their companies challenging their sanctions listing for their alleged role in a corruption scheme that swiped millions of dollars from U.S. contracts in Afghanistan (Mir Rahman Rahmani v. Janet Yellen, D.D.C. # 24-00285).
The European Commission added to its sanctions FAQs for the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts on April 18.
The EU General Court last week rejected a challenge from Belgium and Czech Republic-based company Cogebi to EU import restrictions on Russian-made mica products. The court said that the European Council had laid out sufficient reasons for barring the import of mica products in that the council appropriately found the sale of mica products to "generate significant revenues for the Russian Federation."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said April 21 that if sanctions are imposed on a unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), “I will fight this with all my powers.” Axios reported the previous day that the Biden administration plans to sanction the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion for alleged human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The Senate on April 23 plans to begin considering a House-passed bill that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless China’s ByteDance divests the popular social media application (see 2404180020).
The Council of the EU on April 19 added four Israeli individuals and two entities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the EU Global Human Rights sanctions regime for their role in "serious human rights abuses against Palestinians." The entities are Lehava, a "radical right-wing Jewish supremacist group," and Hilltop Youth, a "radical youth group" with members known for conducting violent acts against "Palestinians and their villages in the West Bank," the council said. The sanctioned individuals are two Hilltop Youth leaders and two other individuals who have committed violent acts against Palestinians.