Britain has imposed sanctions on a number of people close to the president on the pretext of supporting the Syrian people.
The announcement came on the 10th anniversary of the start of the Syrian war. The six sanctioned individuals include Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, presidential adviser Luna al-Shibl, and two military generals who Britain said were responsible for the violent repression of civilians by troops under their command.
The Foreign Office said they also include two prominent businessmen, one of whom, Yassar Ibrahim, allegedly “acts as a front” for the “personal hold on the Syrian economy” wielded by Assad and his wife, Asma, while
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab condemned the Assad regime for subjecting the Syrian people “to a decade of brutality for the temerity of demanding peaceful reform.”
“Today we are holding six more individuals from the regime to account for their wholesale assault on the very citizens they should be protecting,” Raab said in a statement.
The sanctions were the first against the Syrian leadership under Britain’s new autonomous sanctions regime after Brexit.
Separately, British media also reported that the Metropolitan Police has launched a preliminary investigation into claims that Asma Assad has incited, aided, and encouraged acts of terrorism and war crimes by Syrian government forces.
London-based international law firm Guernica 37 said it filed initial documents detailing the allegations against Asma Assad with the police force’s War Crimes Unit last year.
Al-Hasakah province is currently occupied by US troops and Saudi-backed militias, and in recent years these militias have been equipped and armed under the pretext of confronting ISIS, prompting Turkish concern, following which Ankara launched three operations. It carried out military operations in northern Syria and occupied areas in the northern provinces of Aleppo, Idlib, and Hasakah.