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New Atlanticist December 2, 2024

In its final days, the Biden administration should take this step to support Syrian victims

By Mohamad Katoub and Alana Mitias

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently sitting on more than $600 million in forfeited funds linked to international law violations in Syria. The outgoing Biden administration could direct these funds to support victims of the underlying violations, but the time to do so is quickly running out. 

In October 2022, French cement company Lafarge S.A. and its Syrian subsidiary pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorist organizations in Syria. Specifically, Lafarge admitted to paying bribes to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and al-Nusra Front (ANF) in 2013 and 2014 to keep a cement plant in northern Syria operational. Lafarge also purchased raw materials from ISIS-controlled suppliers, supplied cement to ISIS itself, and even paid the terrorist organization in exchange for edging out competing Turkish cement purveyors. Less than a month after the DOJ brought charges, Lafarge pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $90.78 million fine and forfeit $687 million.

Syrians continue to suffer the consequences with minimal support

The Lafarge settlement marked a watershed moment for victims and survivors of international crimes in Syria—including those affected by ISIS’s and ANF’s crimes and those forced to live under the groups’ control. Lafarge lined the pockets of ISIS and ANF while these groups were victimizing the company’s own Syrian employees and otherwise perpetrating horrific atrocities across northern Syria—including the war crimes and crimes against humanity of enslavement, torture, rape, sexual slavery, displacement, and enforced disappearance. ISIS’s crimes in Syria include the killing of more than 5,043 individuals, thirty-two of whom died as a result of torture. Additionally, at least forty-seven individuals, among them sixteen children and ten women, lost their lives due to lack of food and medicine during sieges imposed by ISIS. To this day, the fate of 8,684 individuals forcibly disappeared by ISIS remains unknown. These atrocities represent just a fraction of the immense suffering that ISIS’s war crimes inflicted in Syria.

The victims of Lafarge’s activities have no avenues for legal remedy inside Syria and routinely face logistical, procedural, and jurisdictional hurdles to accessing justice abroad. Ongoing conflict and displacement, among other circumstances, further impede victims’ recovery. Since 2011, more than 113,000 people have been forcibly disappeared by various parties to the conflict, mostly by the Syrian regime, and more than 300,000 have been killed. Over the past thirteen years, the lives of Syrians have been devastated: The country has become the site of the largest displacement crisis in modern history, with more than thirteen million people—over 50 percent of the population—displaced. More than sixteen million Syrians are currently in need of humanitarian assistance. Among them are survivors and families of victims who require urgent medical, psychosocial, and financial support. Moreover, with a significant number of Syrian victims and their families now displaced to other countries, the challenges of securing legal status and access to essential documentation add an additional layer of hardship.

As aid to address the Syrian crisis continues to shrink, support for victims and their families to recover from violations has diminished, as has sustained support for the pursuit of justice and efforts to preserve the truth.

The Lafarge forfeiture offers a pathway to recovery

When the Lafarge forfeiture was announced, it presented a glimmer of hope that the DOJ would work to realize a “primary goal” of its Asset Forfeiture Program: returning forfeited assets to victims, as authorized under federal law. Two years later, however, the funds continue to sit within the US government’s Assets Forfeiture Fund. Syrian victims, including the victims of ISIS and ANF violations in Syria, have seen little, if any, benefit from Lafarge’s prosecution in the United States.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland enjoys broad discretion over the fate of the Lafarge forfeiture and could direct the funds to benefit victims of underlying violations in Syria, following DOJ precedent. Earlier this year, for example, the DOJ announced that the United States had transferred $500,000 in forfeited Russian funds to Estonia for the benefit of Ukraine. The funds were forfeited by Estonia-based company By Trade OU, which pleaded guilty to conspiring to illegally export a high-precision grinding machine system to Russia, where it could have been used by the Russian defense and nuclear industries. In sending the funds to Estonia, the DOJ exercised its authority under 18 U.S.C. § 981(i), which allows the attorney general to transfer forfeited funds to any foreign country which “participated directly or indirectly in the seizure or forfeiture.” Pursuant to an international sharing agreement with the United States, Estonia would use the transferred funds to benefit Ukraine.

The DOJ’s pursuit of “creative solutions to ensure the Ukrainian people can respond and rebuild” is commendable, and—given the exceptional circumstances—should also be applied to Syrian victims. The US government has itself condemned ISIS’s and ANF’s grave violations in Syria, which United Nations bodies have determined amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has also recognized ISIS’s genocide, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing targeting Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims. Further, the US government has promoted justice and accountability for victims in Syria, acknowledged the lack of access within the country, and emphasized the need to pursue legal avenues elsewhere. As is the case for Ukraine, creative solutions are necessary to ensure that Syrian victims may recover and heal.

Three ways to act now

In neglecting to apply a victim-centered approach to use of the Lafarge forfeiture, the United States risks playing into the growing perception of a double standard in its treatment of the war in Ukraine in contrast to other conflicts and groups of victims. As the Biden administration’s term ends, there is still an opportunity to apply the precedent set for Ukraine and allocate the Lafarge forfeiture for the benefit of Syrian victims. But it must act at once. 

At least three potential avenues exist by which the attorney general—working quickly and within existing DOJ guidelines—could direct the funds to benefit affected communities.

First, the United States could send a portion of the Lafarge forfeiture to France, earmarked for disbursement into an eventual Syria Victims Fund. This would follow the pathway used in the transfer of Russian funds to Estonia for the benefit of Ukraine and support a recommendation from the European Parliament to establish a Syria Victims Fund through the European Union. 

Second, the United States and France could establish a bilateral fund to support victims of crimes in Syria, modeled after the US- and Swiss-established BOTA Foundation, which returned forfeited Kazakh assets to populations in need. 

Third, the DOJ could disburse the funds to the US Department of State to support accountability efforts and programming benefiting affected communities. The State Department and many other Western governments are already funding several programs to support victim groups and accountability programs in Syria and thus have extensive experience implementing and monitoring such projects.

The DOJ took laudable action in holding Lafarge accountable for its crimes. Now is the time to finish the job. The Biden administration has a fleeting opportunity to take meaningful action in determining the fate of the Lafarge forfeiture. In diverting the $687 million or even a portion of it to the underlying victims, the administration could heed the calls of Syrian, Yezidi, and international civil society and leave a positive mark on its legacy in the Middle East. Failure to do so risks raising further questions about the existence of a double standard in the US government’s treatment of different groups of victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity throughout the world.

Every moment of suffering for Syrian victims matters, and every day without support for recovery prolongs unnecessary pain.


Mohamad Katoub is a Syria community liaison consultant at the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

Alana Mitias is the assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project.

Further reading

Image: US President Joe Biden speaks about a US Special Forces operation in Northern Syria against ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 3, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger