The United States has levied sanctions against Hafez Assad, the 18-year-old son of Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
The State Department announced the sanctions against Hafez on Wednesday. The sanctions were carried out under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which was included in the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The Caesar Act aims to punish governments, companies, and entities that do business with Assad’s regime.
The new sanctions against Hafez bar him from traveling to or maintaining assets in the U.S. Also sanctioned on Wednesday was Syrian businessman Wassim Anwar Qattan, a prominent figure involved in large-scale construction projects in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
“We will continue to hold Bashar al-Assad and his regime accountable for their atrocities, while keeping the memory of their victims alive,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement. “It is time for Assad’s needless, brutal war to end. This, above all, is what our sanctions campaign is meant to bring about.”
Hafez is named after his grandfather, who ruled Syria for nearly three decades until his death in 2000. Bashar Assad took power after the death of the elder Hafez and has led a brutal crackdown against his own people since Syria devolved into civil war during the 2011 Arab Spring.
Although little is known about Hafez, he has competed in international math competitions, including in 2017 when he finished 528th place out of 615 while competing with the Syrian national Math Olympiad team in Brazil. He has also competed in Romania.
A senior U.S. official told Agence France-Presse that the sanctions against the teenager were done to prevent him from being a go-between for his father to skirt sanctions already imposed on him and his wife, Asma.
“It’s also because we have seen a rise in his prominence within the family,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “Adult children are essentially continuing to conduct business in the name and on behalf of their sanctioned parents or other adult relatives.”
The Assad family was under scrutiny last week when a soldier in the Syrian army disappeared after professing his love for Assad’s 16-year-old daughter, Zein. He said he wished to marry her in videos posted online.
Earlier this month, the executive council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Hague voted to condemn the Syrian regime for using banned sarin and chlorine bombs. The vote came after investigators concluded the Syrian Arab Air Force was behind 2017 chemical attacks.
An estimated 400,000 people have died, and millions have been displaced as a result of Syria’s civil war. The Washington Examiner reached out to the State Department for comment.
