Sanctions target backers of Islamic State and Assad regime
|
Version 0 of 1. Sanctions have been placed on people and institutions suspected of being linked to Islamic State terrorists and Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, the UK foreign secretary has revealed. Philip Hammond said that a middleman in oil deals between the two was among those targeted by the European Union. A company that was said to have paid Syrian shabiha militias, who have been accused of carrying out massacres, and another accused of facilitating the transfer of new bank notes from Russia to the sanctioned Central Bank of Syria were both targeted by the European Union as a result. In addition, sanctions were announced against those responsible for organising chemical weapons attacks, including the Ghouta attacks, in which up to 1,400 people were estimated to have died. Chemical weapons producers were also targeted by the sanctions, it was announced on Saturday. “We are targeting developers, proliferators and users of chemical weapons, along with businessmen and companies supporting the brutal shabiha militias,” said Hammond. “We have also agreed to target individuals supplying oil to the regime, including George Haswani, a middleman buying oil from [Islamic State] on behalf of the regime. This listing gives yet another indication that Assad’s ‘war’ on Isis is a sham and that he supports them financially. “These sanctions show that EU is united in its condemnation of Assad’s brutal policies. We will continue applying pressure to the regime until it reassesses its position, ends the violence and engages in meaningful negotiations with the moderate opposition.” The 13 people newly sanctioned by the EU will be banned from travelling to any member states, as well as having their assets frozen and being publicly outed as Assad supporters. The EU placed travel bans on seven more people and has frozen their assets and the assets of six more “entities” – usually banks, institutions or companies. The sanctions will prevent companies using EU financial services in an attempt to make it more difficult for the Syrian regime to acquire oil. A source claimed that previous sanctions have frozen assets worth hundreds of millions of pounds. More than 200,000 Syrians are thought to have died in the country’s civil war, which is nearing its fourth anniversary. The news came as it was reported that a military chief and several top commanders of the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front were killed in north-western Syria. Syrian state media, a monitoring group and a local activist all reported that Nusra’s Abu Hammam al-Shami was killed, but provided contradictory information on the circumstances. Official Nusra sources did not announce the death of the jihadi, a Syrian believed to have fought with al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Agence France-Presse reported. “Shami … was killed with a number of other leaders during a special operation by the army” in Idlib province, Syrian state news agency Sana reported, without specifying a date. |