U.S. BLOCKS IRANIAN WEBSITES LINKED TO DISINFORMATION

The US Justice Department on Tuesday blocked some three dozen websites, many of them associated with Iranian disinformation activities, a US government source said, Reuters reported.

Several of the sites were back online within hours with new domain addresses. The sites seized included Press TV, the Iranian government's main English-language satellite television channel, and Al Alam, its Arabic-language equivalent. Both later were back online using Iranian domain addresses Alalam.ir and Presstv.ir.

The source in Washington spoke after notices appeared earlier on Tuesday on a number of Iran-affiliated websites saying they had been seized by the United States government as part of law enforcement action.

Iranian news agencies said the US government had seized several Iranian media websites and sites belonging to groups affiliated with Iran such as Yemen's Houthi movement.

The notices appeared days after a prominent hardliner and fierce critic of the West, Ebrahim Raisi, was elected as Iran's new president and after envoys for Iran and six world powers, including Washington, adjourned high-stakes talks on reviving their tattered 2015 nuclear accord and returned to capitals for consultations.

The website of the Arabic-language Masirah TV, which is run by the Houthis, read: "The domain almasirah.net has been seized by the United States Government in accordance with a seizure warrant ... as part of a law enforcement action by the Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement and Federal Bureau of Investigation."

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