US interior secretary says Iran funds up to 24 armed groups

US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on April 29 that Iran funds up to 24 armed groups, and argued that US policy aims to stop what he called “terrorism financing” through stronger economic and energy pressure.

In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Burgum said they should stop viewing this country as Iran, but call it the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) running a state based on oil resources, Caliber.Az reports.

“We’ve got a terrorist organisation with an oil field, and they’ve been militarily defeated, as President Trump describes. But now with Scott Bessent, with ‘Economic Fury’, we have to stop them from being able to fund terrorism and fund exporting terrorism around the world,” he noted, as quoted by Hewitt.

“[W]e should stop calling it Iran. We should just call it the IRGC. We’ve got a terrorist organization with an oil field, and they’ve been militarily defeated.” @SecretaryBurgum to me earlier today. @POTUS committed to his strategic objectives. 45-47 is going to grind down the…

— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) April 29, 2026

He stressed that they used oil money to support up to 24 different terrorist groups.

“So the blockade is not just a physical blockade. It's also an economic blockade to ensure that they don't have the cash to keep raining terror and holding the whole world hostage,” he added.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov