Following his pledge in May to lift sanctions on Syria’s new government, Donald Trump signed an executive order on 30 June terminating the bulk of US sanctions on Syria, excluding those on “Bashar al-Assad, his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS or its affiliates, and Iranian proxies.”
The directive also orders the state department to review the terrorist status of Hayat al-Shams (HTS) as well as Ahmed Sharaa, Syria’s current president. Mr Sharaa was previously the head of HTS, which was a Salafist-jihadist group affiliated with al-Nusra, itself a branch of al-Qaeda based in Syria. (CONTINUED - 330 WORDS)