US: House OKs bills to renew Iran sanctions, crack down on Syria

The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved bipartisan bills to crack down on supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government and renew a decades-old Iran sanctions law. Swift passage underscored broad support on Capitol Hill for punishing financial backers of the Syrian government and maintaining economic pressure on Tehran. The Senate must now act on the legislation before the bills can be sent to the president. The Syria legislation targets key backers of Assad such as Russia and Iran by requiring the president to sanction countries or companies that do business with or provide financing to the Syrian government or the Central Bank of Syria. Anyone that provides aircraft to Syria's commercial airlines, does business with the transportation and telecom sectors controlled by the Syrian government, or supports the country's energy industry also would be subject to sanctions, according to the legislation.<br/>