Syrian President Bashar Assad fled to Russia over the weekend, ending a nearly 14-year struggle to maintain power in his country amid a civil war that has become a battleground for international and regional powers.
But Assad’s people know from the news of the war in Syria that he was not what others expected when he came to power.
Arise in Power
Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, was grooming Bashar’s older brother Basil to replace him. In 1994, Basil was killed in a car accident in Damascus. Bashar was then brought home from an eye doctor in London and given military training, where he was promoted to colonel to give him the credentials to one day rule Syria.
Hafez ruled Syria for nearly 30 years, where he established a centralized Soviet economy. He also formed an alliance with the Shiite clerical leadership in Iran, ended Syrian rule over Lebanon and established a network of militant groups in Palestine and Lebanon.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (C) and his wife Asma al-Assad (L) attend the opening ceremony of the 2022 Asian Games at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Stadium in Hangzhou, east China’s province of Zhejiang on September 23, 2023. (PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images)
When Hafez died in 2000, the country’s parliament lowered the age requirement for the presidency from 40 to 34, and in a nationwide referendum, Bashar became president, the sole candidate.
Bashar initially seemed to be the opposite of his father. When Bashar came to power, he spoke with a slight twinkle, he was tall, slender, quiet and humble. His only official position before becoming president was the head of the Syrian Computer Society, so people believed him to be an intelligent computer fanatic with a gentle spirit.
Bashar also released political prisoners and allowed free speech.
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File – This April 13, 2016 file photo released on the official Facebook page of the Syrian President, shows Syrian President Bashar Assad casting his vote in the parliamentary elections, as his wife Asma, walks by, standing next to him, in Damascus, Syria. (Office of the Syrian President via AP, File)
Diana’s daughter of Syria?
A few months after taking power, Bashar married Asma al-Akhras, a British-born woman known for her beauty and style. The two ended up having three children.
The couple lived in an apartment in the Abu Rummaneh neighborhood of Damascus, as opposed to a large house like other Arab leaders.
Asma, who was born in Acton, West London, to Sunni Muslims from Homs, Syria, is known as the Syrian Princess Diana.
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Syria’s First Lady Asma al-Assad attends the harvest of Damascena (Damask) flowers in the village of al-Marah, Damascus countryside, on May 25, 2023. (LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images)
He graduated in computer science and French literature from Queen’s College London and entered banking, working as an analyst for hedge funds.
She married Bashar in a “secret” wedding in 2000 at the age of 35, and he was only 25 years old.
As Bashar continued to rule, things began to change.
Changing Directions
In 2005, Bashar suffered a setback after losing the Syrian government’s decades-long control of neighboring Lebanon after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many in Lebanon blamed Bashar for the murder. Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and a pro-American government came to power.
At the same time, the Arab world was divided into two – one side was allied with the US and included Sunni-led countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while the other side included Syria and Iran, and their connection with Hezbollah and Palestine.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrives in Jeddah, to attend the Arab League summit the next day, in Saudi Arabia, May 18, 2023.
Bashar appointed family members to key roles, while assigning roles to Asma.
In 2011, the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt were overthrown by protesters, although Bashar has ruled out the possibility of Syria.
His security forces launched a brutal attack while Bashar denied that he had ever faced a coup. Instead, he blamed “foreign-backed terrorists” for trying to undermine his regime.
The uprising escalated into a civil war with millions of Syrians fleeing to Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Europe.
In March 2011, Vogue magazine published a profile on Asma, calling her “Rose in the Desert” and “the most innovative and most magnetic of first women.” This article, which described the Assads as “horrific democrats” and portrayed them as progressive and intelligent, was based on an interview conducted in late 2010. It was taken off the internet weeks after it was published, as Assad’s bloody assault on the Syrian opposition was well received. it continues.
“After our conversation, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that her priorities and values ​​were completely at odds with those of Vogue,” the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, said at the time.
Good Spending
In 2012, Wikileaks published secret emails from the Brit, 42, which showed he spent $350,000 on 130 pieces of furniture in the first year of the civil war.
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Syria’s First Lady Asma al-Assad participates in a graduation ceremony for future teachers of the Syrian Association of People with Disabilities, in Damascus on December 3, 2018. (LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images)
The published emails also reportedly show she also bought $7,000 worth of crystal-encrusted high-heeled shoes and sent the goods to Dubai to circumvent sanctions.
The couple’s presidential mansion – built in 1979 and designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange – is thought to have cost $1 billion.
In 1989, the Washington Post reported that one room was tiled with 125,000 Italian marble tiles at a cost of $85 per tile. The total cost spent on one room was about 10.6 million dollars.
On the same day her husband is believed to have dropped sarin gas on the people of Khan Sheikhoun, Asma posted a picture of herself wearing a chic polka dot dress, looking deep in thought and smiling.
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Asma’s social media posts portrayed her as a humanitarian, adorned with pictures of the first lady reading to children and hugging a Syrian family killed in the nation’s civil war – all with the affectionate hashtag #WeLoveYouAsma.
These images are very different from the ones in the news channels that showed Syrian children lying on the streets dead after being sprayed with toxic gas that the US and its allies said was released by her dictator husband.
In May, Syrian officials announced that Asma had been diagnosed with leukemia, forcing her to temporarily withdraw from public life.
Bashar’s office issued a statement at the time, saying Asma was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and “will adhere to a special treatment regimen that includes strict measures to prevent infection.
Acute myeloid leukemia is a cancer that attacks the bone marrow and blood.
Asma was previously treated for breast cancer.
Timothy HJ Nerozzi of Fox News Digital and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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