BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s foreign ministry said the U.S. falsified facts and manipulated events when it sanctioned an alleged member of a notorious Syrian intelligence branch this week, a statement posted on Syrian state media said on Wednesday.
On Monday, the U.S. State Department issued a travel ban against a Syrian security official and his immediate family over his alleged perpetration of the 2013 massacre of at least 41 civilians in the Damascus neighbourhood of Tadamon.
The U.S. decision comes ahead of the 12th anniversary of the Syrian war later this month.
Peaceful protests against President Bashar al Assad’s rule in 2011 were met with brutal repression and spiralled into a multi-sided conflict that has sucked in neighbours and world powers and caused the largest displacement crisis since World War Two.
Half the Syrian population, which stood at 23 million at the start of the conflict, have been forced to flee their homes, United Nations bodies say.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari; Editing by Josie Kao)
