The United States on Thursday announced new sanctions on Iran targeting its unmanned aerial vehicle production after its missile and drone strike on Israel last weekend, reports Reuters.

The US Treasury Department statement said the measures targeted 16 individuals and two entities enabling Iran’s UAV production, including engine types that power Iran’s Shahed variant UAVs, which were used in the April 13 attack.

Treasury said it was also designating five companies in multiple jurisdictions providing component materials for steel production to Iran’s Khuzestan Steel Company (KSC), one of Iran’s largest steel producers, or purchasing KSC’s finished steel products.

Also targeted, the statement said, were three subsidiaries of Iranian automaker Bahman Group, which it said had materially supported Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The statement said that concurrent with the Treasury action, Britain was imposing sanctions targeting several Iranian military organizations, individuals and entities involved in Iran’s UAV and ballistic missile industries.

The US statement came after finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven industrial democracies said after a meeting in Wednesday that they would "ensure close coordination of any future measure to diminish Iran's ability to acquire, produce, or transfer weapons to support destabilizing regional activities."

European Union leaders also decided on Wednesday to step up sanctions against Iran after Tehran's missile and drone attack on Israel left world powers scrambling to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Tehran says it launched the April 13 attack in retaliation for Israel's suspected April 1 strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. 

Israel has said it will retaliate, while a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Thursday Iran could review its "nuclear doctrine" following Israeli threats.

MSH

At least 34 people, including two babies were killed when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames in southern Benin near the border with Nigeria on Saturday.

According to Beninese Interior Minister Alassane Seidou, “a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the incident.”

"I can't really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening,” he added.

Nigeria is a main oil and gas producer where fuel smuggling is very common along its borders, particularly when the government maintains a subsidy to keep fuel prices low.

The majority of the victims were burnt and they could not be not be identified.

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