On Wednesday, United States President Donald Trump’s administration imposed new sanctions aimed at choking the funds of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, warning that any entity found conducting business with Damascus also risks getting blacklisted. Assad’s teenage son, Hafez, is among the fourteen new Syrian officials and entities targeted by Washington’s sanctions.
The new sanctions have been introduced on accusations that four individuals and ten entities, including a unit of the Syrian army, have either aided government funding to Assad via luxury real estate, or been directly involved in the prolongment of the war. The White House statement read: “More sanctions will follow as part of a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Assad regime the resources it uses to wage war against the Syrian people.” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said that the intentions of the sanctions were to push Assad into taking “irreversible steps” to end the war.
Syria has been in the throes of a crackdown by the Assad regime since 2011, with Moscow and Tehran supporting Damascus and Washington backing the opposition. Millions of Syrians have fled the country or suffered internal displacement. The new American sanctions, imposed under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, have come as Assad already grapples to control the country’s deep economic crisis. The Caesar Act is at the core of American efforts to stifle the Assad regime and “deliver justice” to those who have perpetrated war crimes in the war-torn country’s conflict that has spanned over nine years. The law initially imposed economic sanctions on 39 individuals and companies allied with the Syrian regime, in an apparent bid to starve the government of funds and pressure Assad into entering UN-brokered peace talks.
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Syria has already been subject to several US and European Union sanctions over the years that have completely frozen state assets and those of hundreds of individuals and companies. The Caesar Act also bans any American export or investment in Syria, as well as oil and hydrocarbon transactions. Wednesday’s sanctions reiterate the US position that anyone of any nationality involved in any dealings with Syria could have their assets frozen.
Meanwhile, in Iran, which is also struggling to survive and buy food amid similarly crippling US sanctions, the Revolutionary Guards tested the firing of an underground ballistic missile on Wednesday. The elite paramilitary has been participating in its annual war games drill in the Gulf, drawing American criticism.
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