US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Wednesday that Washington will begin a sustained campaign of sanctions against Syria under the Caesar Act.
“We anticipate many more sanctions and we will not stop until Assad and his regime stop their needless, brutal war against the Syrian people,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
He called the sanctions “the beginning of what will be a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Assad regime revenue and support it uses to wage war and commit mass atrocities against the Syrian people,” referring to President Bashar Assad.
Pompeo was announcing the coming into force of the Caesar Act, which punishes any companies that work with Damascus.
The first batch of designations target 39 people or entities, including Assad personally as well as his wife Asma — the first time she has been targeted by US sanctions.
Under the law, any assets in the United States will be frozen.
Pompeo in his statement charged that Asma al-Assad, with the support of her husband and family, “has become one of Syria’s most notorious war profiteers.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah described the Caesar Act as “unjust and cruel”, stressing that it will affect Lebanon at different levels.
“US’ resort to Caesar Act is an evidence of Syria’s victory in the military and field war, it is its last weapon,” Sayyed Nasrallah said in a televised speech via Al-Manar TV.
Source: Agencies
