U.S. Imposes Even More Sanctions on Syria

July 30, 2020 (EIRNS)—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced yet more sanctions on Syria, yesterday, this time targeting President Bashar al Assad’s 19- year-old son, a brother and other members of his family, and the 1st Division of the Syrian Arab Army. Pompeo said that these sanctions are in response to atrocities that allegedly took place in Hama in 2011 at the outset of anti-government protests, and in Ma‛arat al Numan in 2019 (Ma‛arat al Numan lies along the M5 highway in Idlib and was captured by Syrian troops in December 2019). Pompeo pontificated in a press statement yesterday:

“It is time for Assad’s needless, brutal war to end.  This, above all, is what our sanctions campaign is meant to bring about. A political solution under UNSCR 2254 is the only credible path to the peace the Syrian people deserve.  The Caesar Act and other U.S. Syria sanctions are not intended to harm the Syrian people and do not target humanitarian assistance or hinder our stabilization activities in northeast Syria.”

The falsehood of his claim has been frequently refuted.