US Hits Syria with Toughest Sanctions yet to Push Assad to End War

A picture of Syrian president Bashar Assad is seen on a door of a butcher shop in Damascus, Syria. (Reuters)
A picture of Syrian president Bashar Assad is seen on a door of a butcher shop in Damascus, Syria. (Reuters)
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US Hits Syria with Toughest Sanctions yet to Push Assad to End War

A picture of Syrian president Bashar Assad is seen on a door of a butcher shop in Damascus, Syria. (Reuters)
A picture of Syrian president Bashar Assad is seen on a door of a butcher shop in Damascus, Syria. (Reuters)

The United States on Wednesday imposed its toughest sanctions ever targeting Syrian president Bashar Assad to choke off revenue for his government in a bid to force it back to United Nations-led negotiations and broker an end to the country’s nearly decade-long war.

"We anticipate many more sanctions and we will not stop until Assad and his regime stop their needless, brutal war against the Syrian people," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

He called the sanctions "the beginning of what will be a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Assad regime revenue and support it uses to wage war and commit mass atrocities against the Syrian people."

Pompeo was announcing the coming into force of the Caesar Act, which punishes any companies that work with Assad and has already led the Syrian currency to plummet in value.

The first batch of designations target 39 people or entities, including Assad personally as well as his wife Asma -- the first time she has been targeted by US sanctions. They also target Assad’s brother, sister, a few senior generals and Iranian militia.

Under the law, any assets in the United States will be frozen. President Assad has been under US sanctions since he began to crush an uprising in 2011.

Born in Britain to a cardiologist father and diplomat mother, Asma is a former investment banker who had styled herself as a progressive reformer and modern face of the Assads.

But Pompeo in his statement charged that Asma, with the support of her husband and her own Akhras family, "has become one of Syria's most notorious war profiteers."

Effects felt in Syria
In addition to Bashar and Asma Assad, those designated on Wednesday include Assad's sister Bushra; his brother, Maher, and his wife, Manal; Mohamed Hamsho, the head of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce; his wife, Rania al-Dabbas; his son, Ahmed, a show jumper in Syria’s equestrian team in the 2012 Olympics; and Ghassan Ali, a right-hand man of Maher Assad, and Samer al-Dana, who are leaders of the Syrian military's Fourth Division.

Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, has succeeded in winning back virtually all of Syria except the Idlib area after a war that has killed more than 380,000 people.

The Caesar Act, passed by the US Congress last year with bipartisan support, seeks to prevent Assad's normalization without accountability for human rights abuses.

It penalizes in the United States any company that deals with Assad and blocks reconstruction assistance from Washington.

Syria's central bank on Wednesday devalued the pound after the currency depreciated for weeks on the black market in anticipation of the law.

Pompeo said the goal was to force Assad into accepting Security Council Resolution 2254 of 2015 -- which called for a ceasefire, elections and political transition in Syria.

A UN-driven process has made no headway, with Assad last year launching a major offensive backed by Russian airpower to retake Idlib.

Pompeo said the United States was undertaking the pressure campaign "in full cooperation with other like-minded countries."

The European Union has imposed its own sanctions over Syria and a French court separately on Wednesday convicted an uncle of Bashar over money-laundering and misappropriation of government funds.

The Caesar Act is named after a former Syrian military photographer who fled at great personal risk in 2014 with 55,000 images of brutality in Assad's jails.

‘Broken country’
Syria has already been under US and European Union sanctions that have frozen the assets of the state and hundreds of companies and individuals. Washington already bans export and investment in Syria by Americans, as well as transactions involving oil and hydrocarbon products.

But the new sanctions can freeze the assets of anyone dealing with Syria, regardless of nationality, and cover many more sectors. It also targets those dealing with entities from Russia and Iran, Assad’s main backers.

In a call with reporters, a senior administration official said investment plans in areas, including in reconstruction, that were to aid Assad’s government had already fizzled out due to fear of the Caesar Act. “It’s meant to keep the foreign investors out,” he said.

Several analysts agreed.

“If you are engaging in these sectors, you will be cut off from the US financial system, which is the most powerful in the world. For you as a company, you choose between that and investing in a broken country,” said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, according to Reuters.

The Washington-based Syria Center for Justice and Accountability said the Caesar sanctions are designed for this purpose, “aiming to deter foreign financial engagement and commercial reconstruction agreements with the Assad government.”

But the group said the sanctions also contain provisions exempting humanitarian goods and services, similar to other sanctions, and intended to ensure the flow of aid and mitigate the economic consequences of the sanctions on the Syrian people.



Hezbollah Chief Says Israel Must Fully Withdraw from Lebanon by February 18

 A photo taken from the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Hamam shows smoke rising after an explosion during an Israeli army operation in the village of Kfar Shouba near the border on February 16, 2024. (AFP)
A photo taken from the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Hamam shows smoke rising after an explosion during an Israeli army operation in the village of Kfar Shouba near the border on February 16, 2024. (AFP)
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Hezbollah Chief Says Israel Must Fully Withdraw from Lebanon by February 18

 A photo taken from the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Hamam shows smoke rising after an explosion during an Israeli army operation in the village of Kfar Shouba near the border on February 16, 2024. (AFP)
A photo taken from the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Hamam shows smoke rising after an explosion during an Israeli army operation in the village of Kfar Shouba near the border on February 16, 2024. (AFP)

The head of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said on Sunday that Israeli troops must withdraw from Lebanese territory in full by a February 18 deadline, saying it had "no pretext" to maintain a military presence in any post in southern Lebanon.

Under a truce brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah since early October.

That deadline was later extended to February 18, but Israel's military requested that it keep troops in five posts in southern Lebanon, sources told Reuters last week.

In a recorded televised speech, Hezbollah secretary general Naim Qassem said: "Israel must withdraw completely on Feb. 18, it has no pretext, no five points or other details... this is the agreement."

Qassem said any Israeli military presence on Lebanese soil after February 18 would be considered an occupying force.

"Everyone knows how an occupation is dealt with," Qassem said, without explicitly threatening that his group would resume attacks against Israel.

Israel's public broadcaster said on Wednesday the US had authorized a "long term" Israeli troop presence in southern Lebanon.

During the broadcast of Qassem's speech, at least three Israeli air strikes hit Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley. Israel's military said it conducted strikes after identifying Hezbollah activity at sites containing rocket launchers and other weapons.

Qassem also called on the Lebanese government to reconsider its ban on Iranian flights landing in Beirut.

Lebanese authorities banned the flights from landing until February 18 following Israeli accusations that Tehran was using civilian aircraft to smuggle cash to Beirut to arm Hezbollah.

The decision stranded dozens of Lebanese nationals in Iran, where they had been on a religious pilgrimage with plans to return via Iran's Mahan Air. Lebanon sent two of its own planes to retrieve them, but Iran barred them from landing in Tehran.

Hezbollah organized a protest outside Beirut airport on Saturday, where its supporters were tear gassed by Lebanese troops.

Qassem described Lebanon's ban on Iranian planes as "the implementation of an Israeli order".

"Let the plane land and we will see what Israel will do," he said.