Mar 22, 2017

The US House reintroduced bipartisan sanctions on Syria on March 22 as the bloody conflict enters its seventh year.

The bill from Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., passed the House by voice vote in November and is expected to rapidly clear the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Its fate is less certain, however, in the Senate, where key senators will want to put its own mark on the legislation.

"After six years of brutality, we have to jolt this bloody crisis out of its status quo," Engel, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs panel, said in a statement. "The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act would impose new sanctions on anyone who does business with the Assad regime — going after the money, airplanes, spare parts, oil, military supply chain and Assad’s enablers that drive this horrific war machine.”

The bill is named after a Syrian military photographer who fled the country, taking with him thousands of photographs that appear to document widespread torture and executions by President Bashar al-Assad's regime. House lawmakers and staffers of both parties met with Caesar in Washington just hours before the bill was reintroduced.

The bill would notably slap sanctions on countries that support Assad, such as Russia and Iran. It also encourages negotiations to end the conflict and supports prosecution of war criminals.