The United States levelled sanctions on Thursday against two military commanders from South Sudan, saying they are fuelling the country's 18-month-old civil war. The Treasury Department announced sanctions against South Sudan military commander Gabriel Jok Riak and opposition commander Simon Gatwech Dual "for threatening the peace, security, or stability of South Sudan and for expanding or extending the conflict or obstructing peace talks or processes in South Sudan."
The US sanctions came a day after the United Nations imposed sanctions on Jok Riak, Gatwech Dual and four other commanders in the conflict in the world's newest country.
The Treasury Department noted that its sanctions marked the first time it had taken such action in co-ordination with UN sanctions listings.
"Today's action taken in co-ordination with our international partners underscores that the United States strongly condemns anyone, on either side of the conflict, who exacerbates the ongoing conflict in South Sudan, and we will work to thwart anyone who helps fuel violence in the region," said John Smith, acting director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The sanctions freeze any US assets held by Jok Riak and Gatwech Dual and prohibit US citizens from having transactions with them.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on six commanders - three from the government side and three from the rebels - who were proposed by the United States, Britain and France for targeting after a string of failed cease-fires in the conflict.
Civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the poverty-stricken, landlocked country along ethnic lines. Four years since South Sudan won its independence, two-thirds of the country's 12 million people need aid, according to the UN, and one-sixth have fled their homes.