Britain's Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, accused the Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad on Saturday of supporting the Islamic State (IS), by buying oil from the fields controlled by the group's militants through middlemen. Hammond added that the UK has worked tirelessly with other European Union member states to secure 13 new EU sanctions listings on Syria, in an official statement released Saturday. Sanctions will not only target Assad's regime, but also its developers, proliferators and users of chemical weapons, along with businessmen and companies supporting the brutal shabiha militias, according to Hammond's statement. The foreign secretary referred to a specific businessman, accusing him of buying oil from IS on behalf of the regime. "We have also agreed to target individuals supplying oil to the regime, including George Haswani, a middleman buying oil from ISIL on behalf of the regime," the statement read, "This listing gives yet another indication that Assad's "war" on ISIL is a sham and that he supports them financially," it added. Hammond affirmed that EU will continue to apply pressure on Assad, until it reassesses its position, ends the violence and engages in meaningful negotiations with the moderate opposition.
