The United States on Wednesday blacklisted the eldest son of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hafez, aged 18, in a new round of sanctions against Damascus, announced the chief of the American diplomacy. Mike Pompeo.
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In all, the US government is targeting 14 new entities and people, after a first wave of sanctions announced in mid-June when the " Caesar law " came into force , with the hope of depriving the regime and its supporters of resources. .
" We have now blacklisted more than 50 key supporters of Bashar al-Assad and their companies as well as some military organizations that are martyring the Syrian people ," a senior US government official told reporters. The young Hafez al-Assad - he bears the first name of his grandfather who ruled Syria until his death in 2000 - will not be able to travel to the United States, where his possible assets will be frozen. He joins his mother Asma al-Assad, added in June to the blacklist.
The Syrian president has been sanctioned by Washington since the start in 2011 of the repression aimed at suppressing a popular revolt movement, which quickly resulted in a devastating war which left more than 380,000 dead and millions of refugees. One of the American emissaries for Syria, Joel Rayburn, spoke of " a rise in power " of the son of Bashar al-Assad within the family. More generally, " there has been a tendency, among the important actors of the Syrian regime ", " to use the adult children of their families to carry on business while circumventing the sanctions ", he added to journalists. .
The army and luxury
" The objective of the sanctions is to try to prevent the Assad regime from consolidating the economic control it uses to perpetuate the war, " he continued. Beyond that, the new sanctions also target the first division of the Syrian army and its commander Zouheir Taoufiq al-Assad.
" The army of the Assad regime has become the symbol of brutality, repression and corruption, " lamented Mike Pompeo in a statement, calling for an " end " to this " unnecessary and brutal " war. The US Treasury for its part sanctioned the Syrian businessman Wassim Anouar al-Qattan, " who has concluded several contracts with the government of Syria to develop shopping centers and hotels owned by the State in Damascus ".
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" By investing in luxury real estate through the forced displacement of innocent civilians, corrupt businessmen linked to Assad are also worsening the oppression of the Syrian people ," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in another statement.
The " Caesar Law " was enacted in December by the President of the United States Donald Trump. Caesar is the pseudonym of a former Syrian military police photographer who defected in 2013 by taking 55,000 images illustrating brutality and abuse in Syrian prisons. His hearing, incognito, before the US Congress in 2014 was at the origin of this text which bears his name and which took five years to see the light of day.
The law provides for prohibiting entry into the United States and barring access to the American financial system to any person, institution or company that would obstruct peace in Syria, or who would logistically facilitate the Damascus war effort. .