US declares sanctions towards Assad cousins over drug commerce | Bashar al-Assad Information

US Treasury officers say that the Assad authorities has used drug trafficking as a supply of illicit income.

America has slapped sanctions on two cousins of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over involvement in a bootleg drug trafficking community.

The US Treasury Division’s Workplace of International Property Management (OFAC) introduced sanctions towards six individuals on Tuesday, alleging that they produced and exported an amphetamine referred to as Captagon and used the gross sales to assist fund the Syrian authorities.

“Syria has grow to be a worldwide chief within the manufacturing of extremely addictive Captagon, a lot of which is trafficked by means of Lebanon,” OFAC Director Andrea M Gacki stated in a press release (PDF).

“With our allies, we are going to maintain accountable those that help Bashar al-Assad’s regime with illicit drug income and different monetary signifies that allow the regime’s continued repression of the Syrian individuals.”

Syrian President Assad’s relations and associates allow the Syrian regime to proceed its abuses towards the Syrian individuals by funding the regime by means of commerce in illicit medication. At this time, we’re designating six people for his or her roles on this commerce. https://t.co/HVabTG1V4L

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) March 28, 2023

The sanctions come as Assad is slowly rebuilding ties with regional leaders after a interval of isolation following his authorities’s brutal repression of an rebellion that started in 2011 and expanded right into a civil conflict.

The US authorities has accused the Syrian authorities of turning to drug trafficking to herald income and circumvent restrictions on financial commerce. Assad’s authorities has denied such allegations, stating that it’s cracking down on the distribution of Captagon.

The 2 cousins sanctioned, Samer Kamal al-Assad and Wassim Badi al-Assad, had been accused in Tuesday’s assertion of producing and distributing the drug, in addition to offering help for the Syrian navy.

Additionally sanctioned had been Khalid Qaddour, a Syrian businessman with connections to Bashar’s brother Maher al-Assad, and Imad Abu Zureik, a former commander of the insurgent group the Free Syrian Military. The US Treasury accuses him of now serving as a frontrunner of a militia aligned with Syrian Navy Intelligence.

Two Lebanese nationals, Hassan Muhammad Daqqou and Noah Zaitar, had been additionally designated in Tuesday’s announcement. The sanctions freeze any US-based property held by the people and usually bar individuals within the US from participating in any enterprise dealings with them.

Zaitar responded to the announcement with a press release saying he was “not stunned” by the sanctions and considers them a “badge of honor”.

Zaitar, dealing with lots of of drug costs in Lebanon and sentenced to life in jail in absentia, has a near-celebrity standing within the nation. He has appeared in TV interviews, and pictures of his social life typically surfaces on social media.

In 2021, he denied being concerned within the Captagon commerce, telling the New York Instances that his enterprise was cannabis. “Even my worst enemy, I gained’t present him with Captagon,” he stated.

Tuesday’s sanctions come because the US continues to denounce the Assad authorities’s “abuses towards the Syrian individuals”. In accordance with the United Nations refugee company, the violence in Syria has displaced greater than 14 million individuals since 2011, and practically 7 million stay internally displaced.

About 90 % of the inhabitants lives beneath the poverty line. In June, the UN estimated that the continuing battle has killed greater than 1.5 % of the nation’s inhabitants, together with an estimated 306,887 civilians.

That determine, nevertheless, doesn’t embrace “the numerous, many extra civilians who died as a result of lack of entry to healthcare, to meals, to wash water and different important human rights”, the UN stated.