The State Department and Treasury Department announced Wednesday that 14 additional sanctions were applied to the Assad regime in a bid to end the nine-year civil war in Syria.
Economic sanctions and individual designations began last month under Cesar Syria’s Civil Protection Law, signed by President Trump in December last year.
The Cesar Law is named after a Syrian military photographer who leaked images of thousands of Syrians who were tortured and killed in prisons located across the country.
“The Assad regime army has become a symbol of brutality, repression and corruption,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday. “They killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, detained and tortured peaceful protesters, and destroyed schools, hospitals and markets regardless of human life.”
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Four individuals and 10 entities that actively support President Bashar al-Assad’s violence have been the latest targets of the sanctions, including his adult son, Hafez al-Assad.
A Syrian businessman and nine other entities were made complicit in the atrocities committed by the regime, enriching the government by developing luxury real estate.
Since June, approximately 50 sanctions have been imposed on the Syrian government through the Caesar Law, including Assad’s wife, Asma al-Assad.
“I will take special note of the first time appointment of Asma al-Assad … who with the support of her husband and family members Akhras has become one of Syria’s most notorious war profiteers,” Pompeo said on last month.
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Wednesday’s sanctions were named in honor of two Syrian cities that experienced notorious atrocities under the Assad regime in 2011 and then in 2019.
“Nine years ago, Bashar al-Assad’s troops carried out a brutal siege of the city of Hama, killing dozens of peaceful protesters in a shocking signal of what was to come,” Pompeo said in a statement. “A year ago, the Assad regime and its allies bombed a busy market in Maarat Al-Numan, killing 42 innocent Syrians.”
The White House promised that more sanctions would follow if Assad did not stop the brutal war that resulted in the deaths of approximately half a million people and displaced another 11 million.
The United States has contributed $ 11.3 billion in humanitarian aid to the region since the conflict erupted.
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“The Caesar Act and other US sanctions against Syria are not intended to harm the Syrian people and are not aimed at humanitarian assistance or hinder our stabilization activities in northeast Syria,” said Pompeo.
“The Assad regime and those who support it have a simple option: take irreversible steps towards a lasting political solution to end the Syrian conflict as required by UNSCR 2254 or face new stretches of crippling sanctions,” he added.
