EU sanctions Assad’s women as top army defections increase

The EU took aim at Syrian Pres-ident Bashar al-Assad yesterday, targeting his wife, mother and sister in fresh sanctions aimed at ending months of relen-tless brutality.

Tightening the noose as government forces bombed towns and clashed with rebels in several parts of Syria, EU foreign ministers reiterated a plea for Mr Assad to “step aside to allow for a peaceful and democratic transition.”

In a new round of sanctions, the 13th to date, the ministers slapped a travel ban and assets freeze on Mr Assad’s glamorous wife Asma, his mother Anisa Makhlouf, his sister and sister-in-law. The four were among 12 people and two oil companies added to an existing EU blacklist now totalling 126 people and 41 firms or utilities. Mr Assad himself was targetted in May last year, along with his younger brother Maher.

“The repression has reached totally unacceptable levels of violence and must stop immediately,” said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. “Today’s decisions aim to weaken the regime’s resources and its ability to conduct its brutal campaign.”A Sunni Muslim who originally hails from Homs, Syria’s British-born first lady is the daughter of a heart specialist and a diplomat. The stylish Western-educated former investment banker not so long ago was described by Vogue as a “rose in the desert”. She has since been likened to a modern-day Marie-Antoinette.

It was widely believed her grounding in Western values would give the regime a more human face and shatter the isolation of the secretive Assad family. But she became the focus of sharp criticism this month when Britain’s Guardian newspaper released e-mails showing the ruling couple shopping for luxury goods as the country slid into bloody chaos.

Meanwhile UN human rights experts said yesterday that at least four Syrian brigadier generals have defected in recent weeks and there is evidence that doctors were ordered to make patients unconscious during visits by Arab monitors. The defections indicate a growing number of high level officials are quitting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, members of the UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry into Syria said.

Yakin Erturk, a member of the commission told a press conference the four brigadier generals had defected since the commission’s last report was released earlier this month. Other more junior officers have already quit Mr Assad before.

Turkish diplomats say at least nine generals have defected in the past year.

The move “indicates that high level defections are increasing, not in a very high number but previously the main defections were from enlisted men and less from higher ranking posts of the security and army,” said Mr Erturk.