US sounds alarm on Iran's efforts to build chemical weapons, slaps new sanctions

The United States on Friday sanctioned an Iranian company over its alleged contribution to Iran's efforts to develop chemical weapons, vowing to block any such attempts in the future.

In late May, the US ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) accused Iran of "maintaining a chemical weapons program that includes incapacitating agents for offensive purposes."

However, this is the first time the Biden administration is imposing sanctions against the Islamic Republic's chemical weapons program.

"The Department of State is today imposing sanctions on Hakiman Shargh Research Company for its involvement in Iran’s chemical weapons research and development," the State Department said in a Friday press release.

It said the sanctions are being imposed under the Executive Order 13382, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters.

The State Department accused the Isfahan-based company of "engaging or attempting to engage in activities or transactions that materially contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by Iran."

The Biden administration also vowed to continue to counter "any efforts by the Iranian regime to develop chemical weapons, including those that may be used by its proxies and partners to support Iran’s destabilizing agenda of inciting and prolonging conflict around the world."

British news website Tortoise reported in May that Iran is believed to be developing chemical weapons, decades after publicly giving them up.

"While the world has been focused on Tehran’s nuclear program, reports from inside Iran and statements from the US government point to a growing industry of pharmaceutical-based weapons ... which are based on substances such as fentanyl... and are aimed at rendering targets unconscious," the report said.

"Leaks from regime-backed universities in Iran appear to show that fentanyl and other central nervous system-acting substances are being developed into aerosolized forms for use on civilians in riot control situations," it added.

Since 2018, the State Department said Friday, the US has assessed Iran as being in noncompliance with the CWC for its "failure to fully declare its chemical weapons-related activities and facilities."

In the midst of Iran's 2022 antigovernment protests, the reported use of a “green gas” against protesters in the Kurdish cities of Javanrud and Piranshahr raised serious concerns among Iranians.

Two videos were posted on social media that showed thick green smoke wafting through the streets in Javanrud, a city of around 50,000 in the western province of Kermanshah, amid heavy clashes between stone-throwing protesters and security forces shooting at them. Reports also emerged on the same day of the use of a similar green gas in Piranshahr in West Azarbaijan Province.

The use of an unidentified gas that causes skin irritation, nausea and other symptoms has conjured up memories of Saddam Hussein’s chemical attack on the Kurdish border city of Sardasht, also in West Azarbaijan during Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) in the minds of many, particularly people in Iran's Kurdish areas.

Saddam’s chemical attack during which mustard gas was used killed at least 130 people and injured 8,000 of the 12,000 inhabitants of the city in 1983. Many victims still struggle with respiratory and other health issues.

Some chemists and physicians have identified the green gas used in Javanrud and Piranshahr as hexachloroethane, others say it is adamsite (DM), a chemical used as a riot control agent.

Also in 2023, several schoolgirls were poisoned in what some activists called a “revenge” for the role young women played in the 2022 protests against the mandatory hijab.

The scale of the intentional poisoning of female students -- which started in the religious city of Qom and spread further throughout the country and reached schools in small towns and villages -- turned it into a national crisis and even sparked international reactions.

The patterns of the school attacks were similar to chemical attacks committed by radical Islamists in Chechnya and the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, the Islamic Republic downplayed the attacks and denied any foul play, without making any arrests.