'Oppressive and destabilizing policies'
Makhluf is the first cousin of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and is considered one of the most powerful and influential businessmen in Syria.The 39-year-old controls the country's mobile phone network, SyriaTel, as well as other lucrative businesses."Rami Makhluf has used intimidation and his close ties to the Assad regime to obtain improper business advantages at the expense of ordinary Syrians," Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement."The Assad regime's cronyism and corruption has a corrosive effect, disadvantaging innocent Syrian businessmen and entrenching a regime that pursues oppressive and destabilizing policies, including beyond Syria's borders, in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories," Levey said. Bush signed the executive order on Feb. 13, one day after Imad Mugniyah, one of the world's most wanted and elusive terrorists, was killed in a car bombing in Syria nearly 15 years after dropping from sight.The one-time Hizbullah security chief was the suspected mastermind of attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon as well as the brutal kidnappings of Westerners. The new executive order builds on one that Bush issued in May 2004 that banned all US exports to Syria except for food and medicine.The 2004 order also banned flights to and from the United States to Syria and authorized the Treasury Department to freeze assets of Syrian nationals and entities involved in terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, occupation of Lebanon or terrorism in Iraq.
As in the days of Noah....