WASHINGTON: As Congress considers a controversial nuclear deal with Iran, the US Treasury agency charged with implementing related financial sanctions is at risk of being overwhelmed by its expanding mission, former employees and lawyers who deal with the office say.
The agency, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, is responsible for enforcing a broad array of sanctions and for licensing American companies wishing to do business with sanctioned countries. Both roles will be especially critical if some restrictions are relaxed under the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran.
But a growing reliance on sanctions to address situations as varied as Russia’s incursions into Ukraine, cyberttacks on US businesses, and jihadist financing has increased pressure on the agency, which is being asked to police a bigger beat while staffing and budgets have not kept up.
Dozens of OFAC officials have left the agency in the past four years for better-paying jobs at law offices, consulting firms and banks, which have aggressively built up their compliance departments in response to big fines for sanctions violations.
“OFAC is left in a position where they can only deal with what’s five inches in front of their faces,” said Erich Ferrari, a Washington-based sanctions lawyer.
The agency has prided itself on the firepower of its small and highly specialized staff of about 200, who collectively oversee more than 35 sanctions programs. But the size of the agency has also meant that each departure has an outsized impact, former officials say.
“OFAC is a small organization that is among the leanest, most productive I’ve seen anywhere in government,” said Elizabeth Rosenberg, a former senior adviser at the Treasury Department who left in 2013. “There’s little redundancy.”
The most high-profile recent departures have included Lorraine Lawlor, OFAC’S former chief of compliance programs who left in 2012 for Wells Fargo ; Sean Thornton, former chief counsel who joined French bank BNP Paribas in 2014; Eytan Fisch, former assistant director for policy who left this year for law firm Skadden; and Adam Smith, former senior adviser to the director who left in July for law firm Gibson Dunn.
At least 25 other sanctions compliance officers, lawyers, and others have left OFAC since 2011 for companies including HSBC, Bank of America, Western Union, PayPal, and Credit Suisse, according to a review of LinkedIn profiles.
To be sure, the recruitment of regulators by business is a constant in Washington, and there is no indication that the rate of departures at OFAC is greater than at other agencies. But the impact is particularly acute given that the agency’s staff and budget has grown little in recent years, while its workload has increased.
At one point, OFAC staff were holding up to five happy hours each month for departing colleagues, said David Brummond, a former sanctions adviser who left OFAC in 2014 and is now with law firm DLA Piper.
“It just became funny,” Brummond said. “You had to schedule it into your social calendar.”
Treasury did not provide details on the agency’s staffing levels or comment on whether the agency is short-staffed for the work it does.
“OFAC is comprised of a staff of talented individuals, and our sanctions have become an increasingly effective national security and foreign policy instrument thanks in large measure to the careful work of our staff,” the Treasury said in a statement. BIGGER PAYDAY In some ways the problems faced by OFAC are born of the US government’s success, in winning high-profile penalties against banks for prohibited transactions with Iran, Sudan and other sanctioned countries.
Banks have responded by beefing up compliance departments and tapping senior OFAC officials to lead them. For example, shortly after BNP Paribas agreed to pay US authorities $8.9 billion in 2014 to resolve claims it violated sanctions, it hired Thornton.
Some of the departed officials had served for decades and took with them considerable institutional knowledge of how sanctions have evolved.
OFAC employees, whose salaries top out at around $160,000 per year, can easily double or triple their pay in the private sector. Senior OFAC officials can command up to $1.2 million per year, said a senior compliance official at a large US bank.
Since 2011, the United States has implemented 29 sanctions-related executive orders, according to a Reuters tally, almost double the number from 2006 to 2010 when there were 16 such orders.
OFAC staff have numbered about 170 to 200 for at least the last five years, former officials say. In fiscal 2013, the last year for which information is public, OFAC had a budget of about $31 million, compared to $29 million in 2009, documents show.
Sanctions have also become increasingly complex. The measures imposed on Russia in 2014, sanctions experts say, are especially intricate and target specific activities rather than broad categories of business. And while sanctions ban most US trade with Iran, they include exceptions that allow humanitarian, medical and other business dealings. Such business often relies on the granting of licenses, which lawyers said can take up to a year or more to acquire.
Ferrari said a license he requested for an Iranian animal shelter to raise funds in the United States took 18 months and three separate applications before being granted.
Businesses sometimes give up in frustration after long waits for OFAC’s go-ahead or guidance, lawyers say.
That could present a risk for implementation of the Iran deal, experts say. Without clear and quick guidance, businesses and banks will likely pull back from trade with Iran, even in areas permitted if sanctions are eased. In turn, if Iran did not get the relief it expected from eased sanctions, it would have less incentive to abide by the terms of the deal.
Brummond said it is already a challenge to get agency staff on the phone to give guidance on new sanctions language and what direction regulations might take.
“Clients want the answer whether or not OFAC answers the phone. I try to explain to the client that I’ve left my fourth voice mail,” Brummond said. “I know who I’m calling on the other side, and I know how buried they are.”
US agency overseeing sanctions faces brain drain, added work
US agency overseeing sanctions faces brain drain, added work
Australia detains Palestinian grandmother who fled Gaza
- Maha Almassri, 61, was taken away during a pre-dawn raid on her son’s home in Sydney
- Government official cancels her visa over concerns she is a ‘security risk’
LONDON: A Palestinian grandmother who fled the war in Gaza has been detained in Australia by immigration officers after they raided her son’s home in Sydney.
Maha Almassri, 61, was taken away in a pre-dawn raid on Thursday by 15 members of the Australian Border Force, her family said.
She was told her visa has been canceled after she failed a character test, Guardian Australia reported.
Almassri left Gaza via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in February 2024 and arrived in Australia, where many of her family live, on a tourist visa soon afterwards, her cousin Mohammed Almassri said.
She had been staying with her son in western Sydney, where the raid took place at 5.30 a.m. She was taken to a nearby police station and transferred to Villawood detention center, Mohammed told the Guardian.
Her visa was canceled by the assistant minister for citizenship and cultural affairs Julian Hill, who “reasonably suspects that the person does not pass the character test” and was “satisfied that the cancelation was in the national interest,” a document seen by the newspaper and SBS News said.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization assessed Almassri to be “directly or indirectly a risk to security,” it said.
Mohammed said that his cousin was in poor health, frightened, and struggled to talk over the phone because she was so upset.
He said that the Australian and Israeli authorities carried out security checks before she was cleared to leave Gaza, where almost 58,000 people have been killed in a 21-month Israeli onslaught.
“She’s an old lady, what can she do?” Mohammed said. “What’s the reason? They have to let us know why this has happened. There is no country, no house, nothing (to go back to in Gaza).”
A spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told SBS News that the government would not comment on the case.
“Any information in the public domain is being supplied by the individual and is not necessarily consistent with the information supplied by our intelligence and security agencies,” the spokesperson said.
Almassri had reportedly been granted a bridging visa in June last year after applying for a protection visa.
Last year, Amnesty International accused Australia of rejecting more than 7,000 Palestinian visa applications since the Israeli offensive on Gaza started in 2023.
Palestine Action protests aim to make UK ban ‘unenforceable’
- Hundreds expected at demonstrations in London, Cardiff, Manchester after group proscribed under Terrorism Act
- Founder: ‘We’re a force to be reckoned with when we act together’
LONDON: Palestine Action supporters say they will make the ban on the group “unenforceable” after it was proscribed as a terrorist organization by the UK government.
On Thursday, the group’s founder Huda Ammori, 31, encouraged over 200 people in a Zoom meeting to protest the move this weekend in London and elsewhere, The Times reported on Friday.
“My faith in people like you all is at an all-time high,” she said. “We’re a force to be reckoned with when we act together.
“The most effective route is through actions like the ones Defend Our Juries are leading the way on, in terms of making this ban unenforceable.”
Defend Our Juries is a group originally set up to convince juries not to convict climate activists engaged in disruptive behavior in the UK.
In the Zoom meeting attended by Ammori, a Defend Our Juries member encouraged people to be arrested, saying the police take “a soft approach” to conscientious protests.
“People will be thinking, ‘is that the end of it, has that repression worked to silence us?’ Imagine if it’s the opposite effect and there are double (the number) of us in Parliament Square on Saturday, and there are similar actions in Cardiff and Manchester,” the Defend Our Juries member said.
The call to protest comes a week after 29 demonstrators were arrested for supporting Palestine Action with placards in Westminster, including an elderly female Church of England priest.
“The Met (Police) commissioner has now got an excruciating dilemma. He was being hauled over the coals for wasting public money, for arresting an 83-year-old priest with a sign opposing genocide,” the Defend Our Juries member said.
“He’s either got to double down on that, leaving him looking like he’s not listening, or he’s got to leave it be, which is to admit the law is mad and unenforceable. He’s got no good option. As long as we turn up in numbers, we expose this.”
Palestine Action was outlawed on July 5 after members of the group broke into a Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton and vandalized military aircraft. Under the terms of the ban, support for the group could lead to a 14-year prison sentence.
Protesters, though, are using encrypted messaging platforms such as Signal to plan further demonstrations in other UK cities, The Times reported.
Ammori, of Palestinian-Iraqi heritage, has backed the protests to cause major disruption in the UK court system if hundreds of people are arrested under the Terrorism Act.
The first of these, in London, will be held in Parliament Square on Saturday at 1 p.m., and attendees were told via Zoom that they would be provided with placards, solicitors’ information and prepared statements to read to police if arrested.
A nine-page document was also issued with instructions to communicate via burner phones and on what to do when arrested, including to “go floppy” when manhandled by police to “add to the visual drama of the action” of “civil resistance.”
Another activist with over 100 arrests to their name told the Zoom call: “The worst thing we can do is to be scared. We have to become active … You will find it wonderful to do, important to do.
“If any of you have been getting depressed about issues recently, it’s a great antidote to depression.”
Ammori will appear before the High Court on July 21 after a judicial review of the ban on Palestine Action was called, with moves to prevent its proscription rejected by the Court of Appeal.
UN warns of ‘chaotic’ Afghan refugee-return crisis and calls for urgent international action
- More than 40,000 people arriving from Iran each day, reaching a high of 50,000 on July 4, as more than 1.6m refugees return from there and Pakistan so far this year
- ‘Handled with calm, foresight and compassion, returns can be a force for stability. Handled haphazardly, they will lead to instability, unrest and onward movements,’ agency says
NEW YORK CITY: With more than 1.6 million Afghans returning to their home country from Iran and Pakistan so far this year, the UN Refugee Agency warned on Thursday that the scale and intensity of the mass returns are creating a humanitarian emergency in a country already gripped by poverty, drought and insecurity.
Arafat Jamal, UNHCR’s representative in Afghanistan, on Friday described the situation as “evolving and chaotic,” as he urged countries in the region and the wider international community to urgently commit resources, show restraint and coordinate their efforts to avoid further destabilization of Afghanistan and the region.
“We are calling for restraint, for resources, for dialogue and international cooperation,” he said.
“Handled with calm, foresight and compassion, returns can be a force for stability. Handled haphazardly, they will lead to instability, unrest and onward movements.”
According to UNHCR figures, more than 1.3 million people have returned from Iran alone since the start of this year, many of them under coercive or involuntary circumstances.
In recent days, arrivals at the Islam Qala crossing on the border with Iran have peaked at more than 40,000 people a day, with a high of 50,000 recorded on July 4.
Jamal warned that many of the returnees, often born abroad and unfamiliar with Afghanistan, arrive “tired, disoriented, brutalized and often in despair.” He raised particular concern about the fate of women and girls who arrive in a country where their fundamental rights are severely restricted.
Iran has signaled its intention to expel as many as 4 million Afghans, a move UNHCR predicts could double the number of returnees by the end of the year. Jamal said the agency is now preparing for up to 3 million arrivals this year. Afghanistan remains ill-equipped to absorb such large numbers.
“This is precarity layered upon poverty, on drought, on human-rights abuses, and on an unstable region,” Jamal said, citing a UN Development Programme report that found 70 percent of
Afghans live at subsistence levels, and a recent drought alert from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
UNHCR’s humanitarian response is severely underfunded, with just 28 percent of its operations financed so far this year. Jamal described agonizing decisions being made in the field, including reductions of food rations and other aid supplies: “Should we give one blanket instead of four to a family? One meal instead of three?”
Despite the strained resources, Jamal said the agency is still providing emergency food and water, shelter and transportation at reception centers, and working with partners such as UNICEF to address the needs of unaccompanied children, about 400 of whom were reportedly deported from Iran in just over two weeks.
Pressed on how the UN can support peace and development in a country where women face widespread discrimination, and access to education and healthcare is limited, Jamal acknowledged the severe challenges but defended the organization’s continued engagement.
“Yes, this is the worst country in the world for women’s rights,” he said. “Yet with adequate funding, the UN is able to reach women. We’ve built women-only markets, trained midwives, and supported women entrepreneurs.
“We must invest in the people of Afghanistan, even in these grim circumstances.”
He added that the Taliban, despite their own restrictions and resource constraints, have so far welcomed the returnees and facilitated UN operations at the border.
UNHCR is now appealing for a coordinated regional strategy and renewed donor support. Jamal highlighted positive examples of regional cooperation, such as trade initiatives by Uzbekistan, as potential models for this.
He also welcomed a recent UN General Assembly resolution calling for the voluntary, safe and dignified return of refugees, and increased international collaboration on the issue.
“Billions have been wasted on war,” he said. “Now is the time to invest in peace.”
Philippine president to meet Trump in Washington this month
- Security, tariff issues will be priorities when Marcos meets Trump, expert says
- Manila, Washington have increasingly boosted defense engagements in recent years
MANILA: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will visit Washington this month, the Philippine Foreign Ministry said on Friday, making this the first trip of a Southeast Asian leader since Donald Trump took office.
The trip, which follows Trump’s tariffs announcement earlier this week, will take place from July 20 to 22, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, adding that details of the visit are not yet finalized.
Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez told reporters that Marcos is the “first ASEAN head of state invited by Trump,” referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Trade and security will likely be the focus of discussions, according to Prof. Ranjit Sing Rye, president of OCTA Research.
“I think it’s a very significant meeting of both leaders of the Philippines and the US, especially at this time when there’s so much dynamics in the … South China Sea,” Rye told Arab News.
“It signifies and symbolizes the broadening and deepening of US-Philippine relations under the Trump administration.”
Tensions have continued to run high between the Philippines and China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which billions of dollars of goods pass each year.
Manila and Beijing have been involved in frequent maritime confrontations in recent years, with China maintaining its expansive claims of the area, despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling the historical assertion to it had no basis.
The US has a seven-decade-old mutual defense treaty with the Philippines and Washington has repeatedly warned that a Chinese attack on Filipino ships could trigger a US military response.
Philippine and US forces have increasingly upped mutual defense engagements, including large-scale combat exercises in the Philippines.
Manila is also sending trade officials to the US next week to hold further negotiations on tariffs, after Trump raised a planned tariff on Philippine exports to the US to 20 percent from 17 percent.
It is not immediately clear if the Marcos visit will coincide with that of Manila’s tariff-negotiating team.
“Over the next three years, there will be, in my view, a broadening and deepening of US-Philippine relations on many levels, not just economic, not just socioeconomic, but also in trade, but also in security relations,” Rye said.
“And maybe some of these details will be threshed out during that meeting.”
This will be Marcos’ third visit to the US since he became president in 2022.
His last trip was in April 2024, when he met with then President Joe Biden and former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the first trilateral summit among the treaty allies.
Thousands gather in Srebrenica to mark 30 years since genocide against Bosniak Muslims
- Thousands gather to mark massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim boys and men in Europe’s only genocide since WWII
- Seven newly identified victims of the 1995 massacre, including two 19-year-old men, were laid to rest
SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina: Thousands of people from Bosnia and around the world gathered in Srebrenica to mark the 30th anniversary of a massacre there of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim boys and men — an atrocity that has been acknowledged as Europe’s only genocide after the Holocaust.
Seven newly identified victims of the 1995 massacre, including two 19-year-old men, were laid to rest in a collective funeral at a vast cemetery near Srebrenica Friday, next to more than 6,000 victims already buried there. Such funerals are held annually for the victims who are still being unearthed from dozens of mass graves around the town.
Relatives of the victims, however, often can bury only partial remains of their loved ones as they are typically found in several different mass graves, sometimes kilometers (miles) apart. Such was the case of Mirzeta Karic, who was waiting to bury her father.
“Thirty years of search and we are burying a bone,” she said, crying by her father’s coffin which was wrapped in green cloth in accordance with Islamic tradition.
“I think it would be easier if I could bury all of him. What can I tell you, my father is one of the 50 (killed) from my entire family,” she added.
July 11, 1995, is the day when the killings started after Bosnian Serb fighters overran the eastern Bosnian enclave in the final months of the interethnic war in the Balkan country.
After taking control of the town that was a protected UN safe zone during the war, Bosnian Serb fighters separated Bosniak Muslim men and boys from their families and brutally executed them in just several days. The bodies were then dumped in mass graves around Srebrenica which they later dug up with bulldozers, scattering the remains among other burial sites to hide the evidence of their war crimes.
The UN General Assembly last year adopted a resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide on the July 11 anniversary.
Scores of international officials and dignitaries attended the commemoration ceremonies and the funeral. Among them were European Council President Antonio Costa and Britain’s Duchess of Edinburgh, Sophie, who said that “our duty must be to remember all those lost so tragically and to never let these things happen again.”
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said he felt “humbled” because UN troops from the Netherlands were based in Srebrenica when Bosnian Serbs stormed the town.
“I see to what extent commemorating Srebrenica genocide is important,” he said.
In an emotional speech, Munira Subasic, who heads the Mothers of Srebrenica association, urged Europe and the world to “help us fight against hatred, against injustice and against killings.”
Subasic, who lost her husband and youngest son in Srebrenica along with more than 20 relatives, told Europe to “wake up.”
“As I stand here many mothers in Ukraine and Palestine are going through what we went through in 1995,” Subasic said, referring to ongoing conflicts. “It’s the 21st century but instead of justice, fascism has woken up.”
On the eve of the anniversary, an exhibition was inaugurated displaying personal items belonging to the victims that were found in the mass graves over the years.
The conflict in Bosnia erupted in 1992, when Bosnian Serbs took up arms in a rebellion against the country’s independence from the former Yugoslavia and with an aim to create their own state and eventually unite with neighboring Serbia. More than 100,000 people were killed and millions displaced before a US-brokered peace agreement was reached in 1995.
Bosnia remains ethnically split while both Bosnian Serbs and neighboring Serbia refuse to acknowledge that the massacre in Srebrenica was a genocide despite rulings by two UN courts. Bosnian Serb political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, along with many others, were convicted and sentenced for genocide.
Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic expressed condolences on X while calling the Srebrenica massacre a “terrible crime.”
“There is no room in Europe — or anywhere else — for genocide denial, revisionism, or the glorification of those responsible,” European Council President Costa said in his speech. “Denying such horrors only poisons our future.”
