WASHINGTON — The Obama administration imposed sanctions Thursday on 18 Syrian government officials, Syria’s military and a tech company in response to the use of chemical weapons by President Bashar Assad’s government.
The State Department slapped sanctions on the Organization for Technological Industries, which it accused of helping Syria’s ballistic missile program. The tech company’s primary mission is importing advanced strategic technologies for surface-to-surface missile and rocket programs in Syria, the department said in a statement.
The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 18 senior Syrian government officials linked to the military and Assad’s use of chemical weapons, and also on five branches of Syria’s military: the Syrian Arab Air Force, Syrian Arab Air Defense Forces, Syrian Arab Army, Syrian Arab Navy and Syrian Arab Republican Guard.
A U.N.-authorized investigation into chemical weapons attacks in Syria concluded that Assad’s forces conducted two chlorine gas attacks. Those occurred after a much deadlier sarin gas attack in the Damascus suburbs in 2013 that the U.S. and Western countries blamed on Assad’s forces.
