WASHINGTON: In one of largest sanctions rollouts in US history, the Donald Trump administration on Monday targeted 271 employees of Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), the government agency responsible for developing non-conventional weapons and the means to deliver them.
The designation is one more punitive measure after the US missile strikes on the Syrian regime airfield on April 7, sending a message to Assad that the US knows about and is watching his activities, according to experts.
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) justified the new sanctions as “taking action in response to the April 4, 2017, sarin attack on innocent civilians” in Khan Sheikhun, Syria.
OFAC said: “These 271 SSRC employees have expertise in chemistry and related disciplines and/or have worked in support of SSRC’s chemical weapons program since at least 2012.”
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described the sanctions as “sweeping measures that target the scientific support center for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s horrific chemical weapons attack on innocent civilian men, women and children.”
The message from the Trump administration is that “we will hold the entire Assad regime accountable for these blatant human-rights violations in order to deter the spread of these types of barbaric chemical weapons,” Mnuchin said.
“We take Syria’s disregard for innocent human life very seriously, and will relentlessly pursue and shut down the financial networks of all individuals involved with the production of chemical weapons used to commit these atrocities.”
In accordance with the new sanctions, “any property or interest in property of the designated persons in the possession or control of US persons or within the United States must be blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.”
Analysts and Syria-watchers read the move as a form of deterrence and a sign “the US knows much more (about) what is going on inside the Assad regime than it has been wanting to admit before,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
The new sanctions are added to a list of measures that the Trump administration has taken after Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons in an attack that killed more than 80 civilians in Khan Sheikhun.
Meanwhile, in a separate development, French-Swiss cement maker LafargeHolcim said Monday its chief executive Eric Olsen is stepping down following an internal investigation into the company’s activities in Syria.
His resignation will be effective on July 15, LafargeHolcim said in a statement, adding that its board had agreed to his departure even though an internal probe had determined he was not responsible for any wrongdoings.
Olsen’s departure follows an inquiry into the indirect financing by Lafarge of armed groups in civil war-ravaged Syria to keep one of its cement plants operational.
In a separate development, a US-backed alliance of Arab-Kurdish forces entered the key terrorist-held town of Tabqa as they pursued their campaign against Daesh in northern Syria.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have set their sights on Tabqa and the adjacent dam as part of their broader offensive for the city of Raqqa, the Syrian heart of the terrorists’ self-styled “caliphate” since 2014.
Supported by US-led coalition airstrikes and special forces advisers, the SDF surrounded Tabqa in early April.
On Monday, they entered it for the first time, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. “They seized control of several points in the town’s south and were advancing on its western edges,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
He said US-led coalition warplanes were carrying out “intense” strikes in support of the offensive, but that one raid had killed three women and five children trying to flee Tabqa.
— With input from AFP
US sanctions 271 Assad regime staff over Syria chemical strike
US sanctions 271 Assad regime staff over Syria chemical strike
Egyptian woman faces death threats for filming alleged harasser
- Case revives longstanding national debate in Egypt over harassment and violence against women
- A 2013 UN study found that 99.3 percent of Egyptian women reported experiencing harassment
CAIRO: A young Egyptian woman is facing death threats after posting a video showing the face of a man she says repeatedly harassed her, reviving debate over how victims are treated in the country.
Mariam Shawky, an actress in her twenties, filmed the man aboard a crowded Cairo bus earlier this week, accusing him of stalking and harassing her near her workplace on multiple occasions.
“This time, he followed me on the bus,” Shawky, who has been dubbed “the bus girl” by local media, said in a clip posted on TikTok.
“He kept harassing me,” added the woman, who did not respond to an AFP request for comment.
Hoping other passengers would intervene, Shawky instead found herself isolated. The video shows several men at the back of the bus staring at her coldly as she confronts her alleged harasser.
The man mocks her appearance, calls her “trash,” questions her clothing and moves toward her in what appears to be a threatening manner.
No one steps in to help. One male passenger, holding prayer beads, orders her to sit down and be quiet, while another gently restrains the man but does not defend Shawky.
Death threats
As the video spread across social media, the woman received a brief flurry of support, but it was quickly overwhelmed by a torrent of abuse.
Some high-profile public figures fueled the backlash.
Singer Hassan Shakosh suggested she had provoked the situation by wearing a piercing, saying it was “obvious what she was looking for.”
Online, the comments were more extreme. “I’ll be the first to kill you,” one user wrote. “If you were killed, no one would mourn you,” said another.
The case has revived a longstanding national debate in Egypt over harassment and violence against women.
A 2013 UN study found that 99.3 percent of Egyptian women reported experiencing harassment, with more than 80 percent saying they faced it regularly on public transport.
That same year, widespread protests against sexual violence rocked the Egyptian capital.
In 2014, a law criminalizing street harassment was passed. However, progress since then has been limited. Enforcement remains inconsistent and authorities have never released figures on the number of convictions.
Public concern spiked after previous high-profile incidents, including the 2022 killing of university student Nayera Ashraf, stabbed to death by a man whose advances she had rejected.
The perpetrator was executed, yet at the time “some asked for his release,” said prominent Egyptian feminist activist Nadeen Ashraf, whose social-media campaigning helped spark Egypt’s MeToo movement in 2020.
Denials
In the latest case, the authorities moved to act even though the bus company denied any incident had taken place in a statement later reissued by the Ministry of Transport.
The Interior Ministry said that the man seen in the video had been “identified and arrested” the day after the clip went viral.
Confronted with the footage, he denied both the harassment and ever having met the woman before, according to the ministry.
Local media reported he was later released on bail of 1,000 Egyptian pounds (around $20), before being detained again over a pre-existing loan case.
His lawyer has called for a psychiatric evaluation of Shawky, accusing her of damaging Egypt’s reputation.
These images tell “the whole world that there are harassers in Egypt and that Egyptian men encourage harassment, defend it and remain silent,” said lawyer Ali Fayez on Facebook.
Ashraf told AFP that the case revealed above all “a systemic and structural problem.”
She said such incidents were “never taken seriously” and that blame was almost always shifted onto women’s appearance.
“If the woman is veiled, they’ll say her clothes are tight. And if her hair is uncovered, they’ll look at her hair. And even if she wears a niqab, they’ll say she’s wearing makeup.”
“There will always be something.”
