CHICAGO: The US on Tuesday expanded sanctions against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime targeting 18 individuals and organizations including parliamentarians, military figures, financiers, and members of the family of the leader’s wife, Asma.
As well as Assad’s wife and her immediate relatives, a member of the Syrian parliament, several businesses, and the Central Bank of Syria were among what US Department of State officials described as the “toxic mafia” it said had been hiding money for their own benefit stolen from the Syrian people.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and America’s Special Envoy for Syria Joel Rayburn marginalized the Assad clan and added that talks in Geneva on Syria’s future would continue regardless of what the regime asserted.
“The Department of State today is imposing sanctions on Asma Assad, the wife of Bashar Assad, for impeding efforts to promote a political resolution of the Syrian conflict,” Pompeo said.
“Asma Assad has spearheaded efforts on behalf of the regime to consolidate economic and political power, including by using her so-called charities and civil society organizations.”
Department of State officials said that the new expanded sanctions would apply, with the cooperation of the British government, to Assad family members who had dual Syrian and British citizenship and extend beyond Syria’s geographic boundaries.
Pompeo added that the sanctions applied to Asma Assad’s immediate family members including her father Fawaz Akhras, mother Sahar Otri, and brothers Firas and Eyad, all of whom hold dual Syrian and British citizenship and are based in the UK.
“The Assad and Akhras families have accumulated their ill-gotten riches at the expense of the Syrian people through their control over an extensive, illicit network with links in Europe, the Gulf, and elsewhere,” Pompeo said.
“Meanwhile, the Syrian people continue to wait in long lines for bread, fuel, and medicine as the Assad regime chooses to cut subsidies for these basic essentials that Syrians need.”
The secretary of state pointed out that the sanctions would also apply to the Central Bank of Syria, Lina Al-Kinayeh, one of Assad’s key advisers, her husband, Syrian parliamentarian Mohammed Masouti, and four regime-affiliated businesses they oversee.
Officials claimed Al-Kinayeh, and her operation, was “a financial proxy, a financial front” for the Assad regime which had manipulated assets stolen from others.
The commander of Syria’s Military Intelligence (SMI) organization, Gen. Kifah Moulhem, was also among those sanctioned, said Pompeo, for his role as one of the architects of the Syrian people’s suffering and for preventing a cease-fire in Syria.
He accused Moulhem of implementing the “arbitrary detention, torture, and killing of countless civilians,” adding that the US would “continue to seek accountability for those prolonging this conflict.”
Pompeo noted that the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2254 five years ago calling for an end to the conflict and the “suffering of the Syrian people.” He blamed the Assad regime and family for placing their own greed above the interests of the Syrian people, accusing them of “stalling efforts to reach a political resolution.”
He said: “The Assad regime, supported by its enablers and allies, however, refuses to end its needless, brutal war against the Syrian people, stalling efforts to reach a political resolution.”
In a teleconference hosted after the latest sanctions’ announcement, Rayburn said the US and its allies would continue to put pressure on the Assad regime and its enablers “to prevent them from amassing the resources to perpetuate their atrocities.”
The envoy echoed Pompeo’s remarks adding that “we won’t be fooled” by the Assad family’s efforts and the regime’s obstruction of peace and committing human rights violations “some of which rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Asma Assad has spearheaded efforts on behalf of the regime to consolidate economic and political power including by using her so-called charities and charitable society organizations,” Rayburn said, pointing out that “her corruption” was a primary reason why the conflict had continued.
He said the Assads had used family, political and business relations as a “mafia” front to hide their assets and obtain products and make purchases outside of Syria.
“It is not really their money. They are handling these interests on behalf of Bashar Assad and Asma Assad. This is how Bashar Assad maintains a lot of his money. He allows others (to) hold it for him and then he politically enables them to amass these assets,” Rayburn added, noting they handled import and export business fronts to move their stolen assets and monies.
“Lina Al-Kinayeh is the closest adviser in the Presidential Palace to both Asma Assad and Bashar Assad. They are like a regime mafia power couple. We designated them and their businesses today as a way to strike at the assets of Bashar and Asma Assad.”
Rayburn said the US would not normalize relations with the Syrian Assad regime and would continue to pursue implementation of UN Resolution 2254.
He added that America and its allies were seeking a nationwide cease-fire, now being discussed in Geneva, unhindered access to humanitarian aid throughout the country, the release of all those arbitrarily detained, and a political process that enabled the Syrian people to determine their own political future.
Rayburn blamed not only Syria’s regime for obstructing peace but also the support it was receiving from Iran. He said that the US recognized that there were other tensions among their allies such as between Turkey and the Kurds, but he believed those tensions could be managed.
“There are a lot of challenges between the United States and Turkey … but regardless of those challenges … we have always considered it important to try to maintain as constructive a cooperation as possible and to keep an open channel, even in the roughest times. There are a lot of interests that overlap,” he added.
