Treasury announces new Syria sanctions

The Department of Treasury placed sanctions on a Syrian Air Force official for human rights violations, and on 12 other people and groups for supporting the “Syrian regime,” the agency said in a release Thursday.

The Treasury charges a Syrian brigadier general, Qusay Mihoub, for ordering “the deaths of hundreds of civilians,” during the country’s civil war, which began in 2011. The agency also said that Mihoub’s soldiers carried out targeted assassinations, beatings, detainment, torture and electric shock of prisoners, and burned citizens alive. 

“We will continue to increase economic and financial pressure on the Syrian regime so long as it commits egregious human rights violations and attacks its own people,” Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen said in a statement. “Our actions today reaffirm our commitment to target any individual or entity that supports the illegitimate rule of Bashar Assad and is responsible for the regime’s brutality against Syrian civilians.”{mosads}

Sanctions also targeted four banks, two senior Syrian government officials, two companies in Cyprus and their directors, as well as a Lebanese group and its general manager. The Treasury froze any U.S. assets the people or companies hold and prohibited any U.S. citizens from dealing with them.

The decision to reprimand the group of Syrian officials and government backers could be seen as part of the United States effort to work with Syrian rebels against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It’s a delicate situation: the White House initially viewed Assad’s regime as a significant enough threat to debate bombing it in 2013. But those concerns took a back seat once the ISIS threat materialized.

Both the Syrian rebels and the Assad regime are fighting against ISIS, but they are also fighting against each other. The Syrian opposition is a big part of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, and the Syrian government continues to fight independently against ISIS. But The New York Times reported last week that America’s campaign to destroy ISIS is also freeing the Assad government to step up its attacks on the Syrian rebel groups.