Matt Nash

The US slapped sanctions on Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdel Karim Ali in part over “concerns” about his possible involvement in the harassment and disappearance of dissidents from his country who crossed the border. On Tuesday, State Department Spokesperson Virginia Nuland said of Ali, “We believe that his activities in Lebanon were not compatible with his diplomatic status.”

She also noted the sanctions—which freeze any of Ali’s assets in the US, and bans US companies and individuals from doing business with him—arose because “our concern was the close ties that he’s maintained with Syrian intelligence throughout his diplomatic career.” Pressed by reporters to elaborate on Ali’s “activities in Lebanon,” Nuland said: “We have been concerned, and we’ve conveyed these concerns to the Lebanese government about harassment of Syrians in Lebanon and the disappearance of some of them.”

Human Rights Watch has documented cases of Syrian dissidents being harassed and disappearing in Lebanon in the past six months, but Nadim Houry, director of HRW’s Beirut office, told NOW Lebanon it was impossible to say who was behind the actions.

Back in February—before large-scale protests broke out in Syria in mid-March—three men from the Jassem family disappeared after being questioned by Lebanese authorities days after they “distributed flyers calling for protests demanding democratic changes in Syria,” HRW reported.

Houry told NOW Lebanon that the three Jassem brothers are believed to have left Lebanon and that their fate is unknown.
Then in May, a well-known Syrian activist—and founder of the Syrian Baath Party—went missing from the mountain town of Aley. He has not been heard from since.

In an interview with Al-Hayat published Friday, Prime Minister Najib Mikati, when asked about Nuland’s statement, said: “At this stage, many issues are going on that don’t need to be revealed to the public.”
The PM’s office did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
It is unclear what, if any, impact the US sanctions will have on Ali. He is Syria’s first diplomat to serve in Beirut. Lebanon and its neighbor, which both gained independence from France in the 1940s, did not agree to establish formal diplomatic relations until late 2008 and did not open respective embassies in each other’s countries until 2009. (The two have still not signed a formal agreement demarcating their shared borders.)

Ali has repeated the official government position that protesters demanding greater freedoms and the fall of the regime are largely armed gangs and terrorists. He has also accused Lebanese officials, usually without naming them, of sending weapons and money to Syria in support of the opposition.

Before entering the diplomatic core, Ali was a “political activist,” head of Syria’s state television and radio stations, and director general and editor-in-chief of the official Syrian Arab News Agency. NOW Lebanon could find no direct evidence of his involvement with Syrian intelligence (and the US Embassy did not respond to an interview request), but he was widely derided as a regime lackey by March 14 politicians when first appointed (and repeatedly since).
Echoing reporters in Washington, Director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies Oussama Safa told NOW Lebanon that Ali seemed like a bit of a “small fish” to end up the target of sanctions, as the Obama administration ups the pressure against Damascus.

However, Safa said he thinks this move “sends a very strong message that Lebanon should be a place where people enjoy their freedom protesting or even supporting regimes.”

David Schenker, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, saw a similar message in the sanctions against Ali. In an interview with Voice of America, Schenker said, “We’re not going to see any change in behavior or immediate results from these sanctions. But it is a clear message from the Obama administration that people will be held accountable… And it may dissuade, in the future, others from taking actions in support of this repression and regime that appears to be heading toward its demise.”

Safa added, however, that there may be a more specific message for Lebanese authorities in this latest US action.
“Lebanon should read the message in such a way that they have to break free from basically being taken for a ride by the Syrians,” he said. “I think the Syrian ambassador has been acting in a very arrogant way, and that, I think, from the State Department’s point of view, has to end.”