CHICAGO: The US on Tuesday expanded sanctions against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime targeting 18 individuals and organizations including parliamentarians, military figures, financiers, and members of the family of the leader’s wife, Asma. As well as Assad’s wife and her immediate relatives, a member of the Syrian parliament, several businesses, and the Central Bank of Syria were among what US Department of State officials described as the “toxic mafia” it said had been hiding money for their own benefit stolen from the Syrian people. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and America’s Special Envoy for Syria Joel Rayburn marginalized the Assad clan and added that talks in Geneva on Syria’s future would continue regardless of what the regime asserted.