Abdul Salam Mahmoud is the First Regime Security Official Whose Family Have Also Been Designated for Sanctions
Languages
Available In
The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR)
On November 15, 2024, the United States Department of State announced the designation of Brigadier General Abdul Salam Fajr Mahmoud, a senior officer in the Syrian regime’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate, for sanctions, alongside his wife Suhair Nader al-Jundi and four adult children, pursuant to Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2024.
This designation comes in response to Abdul Salam’s involvement in grave human rights violations, including torture, and other cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment or punishment. Section 7031(c) provides for imposing sanctions on foreign officials if they were found to be involved in grave human rights violations. These sanctions include a US entry ban for Abdul or their immediate family members, with the possibility of implementing these sanctions publicly and privately.
Born on May 20, 1959, Abdul Salam Fajr Mahmoud, from al-Fu’a town in Idlib governorate, is a Brigadier General affiliated with the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, one of the regime’s most powerful security branches.
Abdul Salam has held several posts in the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, most notably his current position as head of investigation at the directorate’s base at al-Mazza Military Airbase, which he has held since 2011.
His name has been associated with numerous systematic and grave human rights violations, including enforced disappearance and torture in regime detention centers. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has documented many of these violations, including deaths due to torture and inhumane detention conditions.
Abdul Salam Mahmoud is the First Regime Security Official to be Designated With His Family
The designation of Abdul Salam Mahmoud alongside his family members for sanctions is the first case of its kind, i.e., of a regime security official being designated alongside his family. This action has been taken to block any attempt to circumvent sanctions by those involved in grave violations through transferring their funds or assets to their family members, a method commonly used by sanctioned individuals to evade restrictions. With family members also being designated, however, some of the gaps used to circumvent sanctions are thereby closed, making these sanctions far more effective.
Beside the technical aspects of such sanctions, this action is a strong symbolic message demonstrating the US Department of State’s seriousness in combating the Syrian regime’s networks of influence, further escalating its efforts to impose greater political pressure on the regime and its security apparatus.
SNHR’s Supporting Role
SNHR has played an instrumental role in making this decision a reality. For one, the group has supplied the US Department of State with detailed and verified information on Abdul Salam Mahmoud and his family members. SNHR always strives to provide accurate data based on clear evidence concerning those involved in grave violations, including their family members who, as mentioned above, can be used by these individuals to evade sanctions.
This forms part of SNHR’s efforts to promote accountability and close gaps which serve impunity, making for stronger accountability mechanisms and the prevention of circumvention networks.
Sanctions and Other Past International Decision
This designation comes one year after the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its Order on November 16, 2023, calling on the regime to take immediate action to end torture and cruel or degrading treatment, and preserve the evidence on such crimes.
Despite this ruling, however, the regime has utterly failed to comply with the ICJ Order. In fact, SNHR, in its fourth periodic monitoring report released on November 15, 2024, documented the regime’s continuing violations of the ICJ decisions, documenting at least 84 deaths due to torture and the arrest of 1,161 civilians, including 18 children and 43 women, in the past year alone.
Calls for Promoting International Efforts and Recommendations to Ensure the Effectiveness of Sanctions
SNHR must stress that these sanctions can be made truly effective only through integrated international efforts, meaning that states must expand the scope of their implementation of sanctions and freeze the assets of implicated officials wherever they are in order to put more pressure on the regime and undermine its ability to circumvent these restrictions. SNHR calls for:
- Expand the scope of international sanctions
SNHR calls on all states to designate more regime officials implicated in grave violations alongside their family members for sanctions, including asset freezes and entry bans.
- Promote support for international accountability
UN member states, particularly UN Security Council permanent members, must support the referral of the violations file in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
- Invoke cross-border justice mechanisms
Encourage states to invoke universal jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes associated with the Syrian regime before national courts.
- Impose sanctions on the regime’s financial networks
Direct international efforts to dismantle the financial and economic networks used by the regime to circumvent sanctions through targeting all entities involved, including individuals and companies that serve as fronts for the regime.
Designating security officials for sanctions is an additional step in the right direction, taken as part of the international efforts to promote accountability for the innumerable heinous crimes and violations committed in Syria. These sanctions send a clear message to the Syrian regime and its allies that their crimes will not go unpunished, while also undermining their financial support networks which are used by the regime to righten its political and security grip.
These actions are particularly crucial in light of the failure of many past international accountability mechanisms, such as the failure to invoke the ICC, the lack of any viable prospects for a political democratic transition, and the growing trend of restoring relations with the regime despite its well-documented implication in crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, with these crimes still continuing to this day.